UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


OF" 


Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALS  WORTH. 

Received  October,  1894. 
Accessions  No.  Tb  .      Class  No. 


UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY, 
NEW    YORK. 

THE     ELY     LECTURESHIP 

ON 

(Etritences  of 


FIRST  SERIES. 

BY    THE    REV.   ALBERT    BARNES, 
OF    PHILADELPHIA. 


LECTURES 


ON  TEE 


EVIDENCES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

IN 

THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY, 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  MERCER  STREET  CHURCH,  NEW  YORK, 
JANUARY  21  TO  FEBRUARY  21,  186T. 

ON   THE 
"  ELY  FOUNDATION"  OF  THE  UNION  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY. 


BY  ALBERT  BARNES, 

AT7TIIOE   OP 


ETC.,   ETC. 


NEW     YORK: 


HARPER    &     BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN     SQUARE. 
1868. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
sixty-seven,  by 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


PREFACE 


THIS  course  of  Lectures  on  the  Evidences  of  Chris 
tianity  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  was  delivered,  by 
appointment,  as  the  first  course  on  the  foundation  es 
tablished  in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  by  Mr. 
Zebulon  Stiles  Ely,  of  New  York,  in  the  following 
terms : 

"  The  undersigned  gives  the  sum  of  ten  thousand 
dollars  to  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  of  the  city 
of  New  York,  to  found  a  lectureship  in  the  same,  the 
title  of  which  shall  be  '  The  Elias  P.  Ely  Lectures  on 
the  Evidences  of  Christianity.' 

"  The  course  of  Lectures  given  on  this  foundation 
is  to  comprise  any  topics  that  serve  to  establish  the 
proposition  that  Christianity  is  a  religion  from  God, 
or  that  it  is  the  perfect  and  final  form  of  religion  for 
man. 

"  Among  the  subjects  discussed  may  be — 

"  The  Nature  and  Need  of  a  Eevelation ; 

"The  Character  and  Influence  of  Christ  and  his 
Apostles ; 

"  The  Authenticity  and  Credibility  of  the  Scrip 
tures  :  Miracles  and  Prophecy ; 


VI  PREFACE. 

"  The  Diffusion  and  Benefits  of  Christianity  ;  and 

"  The  Philosophy  of  Eeligion  in  its  Kelation  to  the 
Christian  System. 

"  Upon  one  or  more  of  such  subjects  a  course  of 
ten  public  Lectures  shall  be  given  at  least  once  in 
two  or  three  years.  The  appointment  of  the  Lecturer 
is  to  be  by  the  concurrent  action  of  the  directors  and 
faculty  of  said  seminary  and  the  undersigned ;  and 
it  shall  ordinarily  be  made  two  years  in  advance. 

"  The  interest  of  the  fund  is  to  be  devoted  to  the 
payment  of  the  Lecturers  and  the  publication  of  the 
Lectures  within  a  year  after  the  delivery  of  the  same. 
The  copyright  of  the  volumes  thus  published  is  to 
be  vested  in  the  seminary. 

"In  case  it  should  seem  more  advisable,  the  di 
rectors  have  it  at  their  discretion  at  times  to  use  the 
proceeds  of  this  fund  in  providing  special  courses  of 
lectures  or  instruction  in  place  of  the  aforesaid  public 
lectures  for  the  students  of  the  seminary  on  the  above- 
named  subjects.  ;  » 

"  Should  there  at  any  time  be  a  surplus  of  the  fund, 
the  directors  are  authorized  to  employ  it  in  the  way 
of  prizes  for  dissertations  by  students  of  the  seminary 
upon  any  of  the  above  topics,  or  of  prizes  for  essays 
thereon,  open  to  public  competition.  « 

"ZEBULON  STILES  ELY. 

"  New  York,  May  8th,  1865." 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  ^  PAGE 

I.  THE  LIMITATIONS  OP  THE  HUMAN  MIND  ON  THE  SUB 
JECT  OF  RELIGION 9 

II.  HISTORICAL  EVIDENCE  AS  AFFECTED  BY  TIME 41 

III.  HISTORICAL  EVIDENCE  AS  AFFECTED  BY  SCIENCE 75 

IV.  THE  EVIDENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FROM  ITS  PROPAGA 

TION Ill 

V.  MIRACLES:  TH"E  EVIDENCE  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CEN 
TURY  THAT  THEY  WERE  PERFORMED  IN  THE  FlRST..  151 

VI.  THE  ARGUMENT  FOR  THE  TRUTH  OF  CHRISTIANITY,  IN 

THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY,  FROM  PROPHECY 194 

VII.  INSPIRATION  OF  THE  SCRIPTURES  WITH  REFERENCE  TO 

THE  OBJECTIONS  MADE  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  22G 

VIII.  THE  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  DIVINE  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIAN 
ITY  FROM  THE  PERSONAL  CHARACTER  AND  THE  IN 
CARNATION  OF  CHRIST 272 

IX.  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  AS  ADAPTED  TO  THE  WANTS 

OF  MAN,  AS   ILLUSTRATED  IN  THESE  EIGHTEEN  HuND- 

RED  YEARS 308 

X.  THE  RELATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  THE  WORLD'S 
PROGRESS  IN  SCIENCE,  CIVILIZATION,  AND  THE  ARTS 
IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY 344 

APPENDIX...  ..  403 


EVIDENCES  OF  CHRISTIANITY, 


LECTURE  I. 

THE    LIMITATIONS    OF    THE    HUMAN   MIND    ON   THE    SUB 
JECT    OF   RELIGION. 

I  HAVE  been  requested  to  deliver  a  course  of  lectures 
in  this  seminary  on  the  "  Ely  foundation,"  on  the  "  Evi 
dences  of  Christianity."  By  the  terms  of  that  "  Foun 
dation"  the  course  is  to  "  comprise  any  topics  that  serve 
to  establish  the  proposition  that  Christianity  is  a  relig 
ion  vfrom  God,  or  that  it  is  the  perfect  and  final  form 
of  religion  for  man."  Among  the  subjects  discussed, 
as  specified,  may  be, 

"  The  nature  and  need  of  a  revelation ; 

"  The  character  and  influence  of  Christ  and  his  apos 
tles; 

"  The  authenticity  and  credibility  of  the  Scriptures : 
miracles  and  prophecy ; 

"  The  diffusion  and  benefits  of  Christianity ;  and 

"  The  philosophy  of  religion  in  its  relation  to  the 
Christian  system." 

The  course,  by  the  terms  of  the  "  Foundation,"  is  to 
be  comprised  in  Ten  Lectures,  and  the  general  subject 
which  I  shall  endeavor  to  illustrate  in  this  course  will  be 
THE  EVIDENCES  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  THE  NINETEENTH 
CENTURY.  I  have  selected  this  as  being  in  accordance 
with  the  subjects  suggested  for  the  general  course;  as 
A2 


10  LECTURES    ON   THE 

sufficiently  comprehensive  to  embrace  the  points  which 
can  be  considered  in  so  limited  a  course ;  as  suggesting 
important  inquiries  in  regard  to  the  present  relation  of 
Christianity  to  the  world;  and  as  leading  to  the  dis 
cussion  of  topics  originated  or  matured  in  our  own  age, 
and  difficulties  suggested  in  this  age,  which  must  be 
met  by  those  who  are,  by  their  office  and  by  the  pur 
poses  of  their  lives,  to  be  regarded  as  the  public  defend 
ers  of  Christianity. 

Christianity  now  exists  as  among  the  undisputed 
great  moral  powers  or  forces  in  the  world.  It  has  a 
place  among  other  powerful  systems  of  religion,  and 
among  philosophical  systems,  deeply  affecting  the  des 
tinies  of  mankind.  It  Has  a  history  of  its  own — a  his 
tory  extending  now  through  more  than  eighteen  centu 
ries,  and  leaving  unmistakable  evidence  of  its  exist 
ence  and  its  power  on  the  general  course  of  events.  It 
is  a  "  power"  on  the  earth  undeniably  exerting  a  vast 
influence  on  human  affairs. 

It  is  very  closely  connected  with  liberty,  with  do 
mestic  arrangements,  with  civilization,  with  literature, 
with  the  arts  of  life,  with  manners,  customs,  and  laws, 
with  the  governments  of  the  nations,  with  the  adminis 
tration  of  justice,  with  the  doctrine  of  human  rights, 
with  prevailing  views  of  morals,  with  the  prospects  of 
the  world  in  regard  to  the  future,  and  with  the  relig 
ious  hopes  of  individual  men.  It  was  among  the  things, 
even  in  its  feeble  beginning,  which  Tacitus  could  not 
pass  over  wholly  in  silence ;  one  of  the  things  which 
demanded  all  the  talent  of  Mr.  Gibbon  to  explain,  and 
which  now,  whatever  may  be  men's  individual  faith  in 
it,  must  enter  into  every  philosophical  view*wThich  is 
taken  of  the  present  condition  and  prospects  of  the 
world. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  11 

In  regard  to  many  or  most  of  those  things  referred 
to  —  civilization,  literature,  arts,  manners,  customs, 
laws,  governments,  the  administration  of  justice,  the 
doctrine  of  human  rights,  the  prevailing  views  of  mor 
als,  and  the  hopes  of  men  in  regard  to  the  future,  it 
has  either  originated  them,  or  it  has  shown  a  decided 
affinity  for  them,  combining  readily  with  them  when 
suggested,  enlarging  their  sphere  of  influence,  and  seiz 
ing  upon  them  for  its  own  promotion  and  perpetuity  in 
the  world.  In  this  respect  it  is  unlike  all  other  forms 
of  religion,  and  has  now  become  so  incorporated  with 
those  things,  and  so  identified  with  them,  that  it  could 
not  be  detached  from  them  without  disturbing,  if  not 
destroying,  the  whole  frame-work  of  modern  society. 
The  Christian  religion  was  fatal  to  many  things  that 
entered  into  the  notions  of  civilization,  the  laws,  and 
the  governments  of  the  ancient  world,  as  it  will  be  to 
many  of  those  things  as  they  exist  in  other  lands  if  it 
is  propagated  among  them ;  nor  could  those  ancient 
things  be  restored,  or  those  modern  things  be  perpetu 
ated,  without  an  entire  destruction  of  the  Christian  sys 
tem. 

It  is  a  perfectly  fair  question  for  any  one  to  ask, 
What  is  the  origin  of  this  system  of  religion  ?  and  the 
question  is  one  which  the  friends  of  the  system  may  be 
held  to  answer.  Is  it  of  man  ?  Is  it  a  development  or 
outgrowth  of  some  former  system  of  religion  ?  Is  it  a 
necessary  result  of  the  progress  of  the  race  in  civiliza 
tion — on  the  same  level,  in  this  respect,  with  the  com 
forts  of  domestic  life,  the  blessings  of  liberty,  the  useful 
arts,  the  sciences  ?  Is  it  a  well-executed  imposture  ? 
for  such  it  must  be  if  it  is  an  imposture  at  all.  Is  it 
the  result  of  delusion  and  fanaticism  ?  Is  it  expressive 
of  the  conscious  wants  of  man,  founded  on  a  myth,  and 


12  LECTURES    ON   THE 

wrought  by  human  wisdom  into  a  system  that  com 
mends  itself  to  enlightened  understandings,  and  to 
hearts  troubled  by  sin  and  sorrow,  as  being  all  that 
man  needs  ?  Or  is  it  of  divine  origin,  as  it  claims  to  be 
— a  true  revelation  from  God  ? 

The  Westminster  Review  (January,  1866)  therefore 
is  perfectly  right  in  asking  the  question, "  How  did 
Christianity  originate?  Did  it  originate  as  an  out- 
coming  of  a  natural  order,  or  by  a  supernatural  inter 
ference  ?" 

The  question  implies  that  it  had  an  "  origin,"  that  is, 
a  beginning  at  some  time  since  man  began  to  exist  on 
the  earth.  It  is  not,  as  is  implied  in  the  question,  coe 
val  with  man.  There  was  a  time  when  it  did  not  exist ; 
when  there  was  no  trace  of  it  on  the  earth.  History, 
in  each  and  every  ancient  nation,  so  far  as  those  nations 
have  a  history,  goes  back  to  a  period  when  Christianity 
did  not  exist.  It  was  not  in  Egypt,  in  Assyria,  in  Bab 
ylonia,  among  the  Chaldees,  in  the  Teutonic  nations, 
among  the  early  inhabitants  of  the  British  Isles.  Have 
the  annals  of  any  nation  preserved  the  record  of  its 
origin,  so  that  now,  after  the  lapse  of  ages,  and  after  it 
has  been  matured  in  its  present  form,  we  can  under 
stand  how  it  made  its  beginning  in  our  world?  Did 
the  wants  of  men  suggest  it  ?  Did  the  friend  of  men 
devise  it  ?  Did  the  wisdom  of  God,  seeing  that  it  was 
needful  for  man,  reveal  it  ? 

It  is  with  a  view  to  furnishing  an  answer  to  these 
questions  that  the  Course  of  Lectures  on  the  "  Ely 
Foundation"  in  this  seminary  has  been  established,  and 
that  the  range  of  topics  which  I  have  indicated  has 
been  suggested  as  limiting  the  subjects  to  be  discussed 
in  the  Lectures,  and  specifying  the  field  to  be  occupied. 
The  range  is  a  wide  one,  and  it  can  not  be  supposed,  as 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  13 

it  was  not  designed,  that  the  subjects  should  be  ex 
hausted  in  a  single  course.  It  is  wisely  intended  that 
the  course  shall  be  continued  from  year  to  year,  not  by 
the  same  lecturer,  but  by  new  lecturers,  with  fresh 
minds  and  hearts,  with  new  powers,  with  views  taken 
from  different  stand-points,  with  the  results  of  varied  ex 
perience  and  observation,  with  illustrations  drawn  fresh 
from  the  experience  of  pastors  in  the  work  of  the  minis 
try,  and  especially  with  a  designed  reference  to  the  wants 
of  the  world,  and  the  state  of  the  public  mind  outside 
the  Church,  as  demanded  by  the  progress  of  science,  by 
new  difficulties  that  spring  up,  by  questions  that  have 
not  before  occurred  that  may  need  solution,  by  new 
forms  of  objection  that  may  be  made  to  the  Bible,  by 
new  aspects  of  philosophy,  presenting  to  the  minds  of 
thinking  men  new  difficulties  in  regard  to  the  Christian 
system. 

I  have  selected  as  the  main  topic  on  which  I  propose 
to  address  you,  leaving  ampler  fields  to  those  who  shall 
follow  me,  The  Evidences  of  the  Truth  of  Christianity 
in  the  Nineteenth  Century : — at  a  time  when  eighteen 
hundred  years  have  passed  away  since  the  evidence  of 
its  divine  origin  was  first  submitted  to  the  world ;  when 
it  has  been  tried  in  its  applications  to  the  wants  of  men 
during  those  eighteen  hundred  eventful  years ;  now,  in 
an  age  remarkable  for  its  advancement,  and  when  evi 
dence  on  all  subjects  is  examined  by  rules  unknown  to 
the  world  at  the  time  when  the  evidences  of  the  divine 
origin  of  the  Christian  system  was  first  submitted  to 
mankind,  and  by  an  acuteness  of  investigation  far  in  ad 
vance  of  that  age.  As  Christianity  convinced  the  men 
of  that  generation  of  its  divine  origin,  it  can  not  be  im 
proper  to  inquire  whether  the  evidence  that  was  deem 
ed  satisfactory  then  in  regard  to  its  origin  should  be 


14  LECTURES    ON   THE 

regarded  as  satisfactory  now.  The  lapse  of  eighteen 
hundred  years  may  at  least  suggest  the  inquiry  whether 
it  had  at  first  any  claims  to  the  attention  which  it  re 
ceived  from  mankind. 

Under  the  general  topic  which  I  have  suggested,  I 
propose  to  embrace  the  following  subordinate  topics  as 
comprehended  in  it :  The  limitations  of  the  human  mind 
on  the  subject  of  religion ;  Historical  evidence  as  af 
fected  by  time ;  Historical  evidence  as  affected  by  sci 
ence  ;  the  evidence  of  Christianity  from  its  propaga 
tion,  as  that  evidence  exists  at  present ;  Miracles — the 
evidence  in  the  nineteenth  century  that  they  were  per 
formed  in  the  first ;  Prophecy,  as  that  evidence  exists 
now ;  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  with  reference 
to  the  objections  made  to  it  at  present;  the  personal 
character  and  the  incarnation  of  Christ ;  the  religion 
itself  as  adapted  to  the  wants  of  man,  as  illustrated 
in  these  eighteen  hundred  years ;  and  the  relation  of 
Christianity  to  the  present  stage  of  the  world's  progress 
in  science,  civilization,  and  the  arts. 

I  may  be  allowed,  before  entering  upon  the  particular 
subject  before  us  at  this  time,  to  refer  to  a  difficulty 
which  I  very  sensibly  feel  in  undertaking  this  course 
at  all.  It  is  the  supposition  which  seems  to  be  implied 
in  such  a  course  that  I  could  do  any  thing  supplement 
ary  to  the  instructions  which  are,  in  the  regular  course, 
delivered  from  the  Chair  of  Theology  in  this  seminary. 
The  proprieties  of  the  place  and  the  occasion  would  not 
allow  me  to  speak,  as  my  feelings  would  prompt  me  to, 
of  him  who  occupies  that  chair,  and  whose  time  is  de 
voted,  yet  in  the  full  vigor  of  life,  to  this  very  inquiry, 
among  others  in  his  course,  and  who  enjoys  advantages 
for  instructing  others  in  studies  of  this  nature  which 
can  not  be  expected  from  one  whose  time  is  so  much 
occupied  with  the  routine  of  pastoral  duties. 


EVIDENCES    OF  CHRISTIANITY.  15 

There  are  a  few  things,  however,  which  I  may  be  al 
lowed  to  say  in  reference  to  what  seems  to  be  presump 
tion  in  undertaking  such  a  task,  and  which  may  be  ap 
plicable  to  the  very  purpose  of  endowing  such  a  lec 
tureship,  as  well  as  to  my  own  undertaking,  (a)  It  is 
known  to  all  that  different  views  of  the  same  subject 
may  be  taken  by  different  individuals  from  the  points 
of  observation  which  they  respectively  occupy,  and 
that  it  may  require  a  comparison  of  many  such  views 
to  obtain  a  complete  idea  of  any  one  object  or  subject. 
From  how  many  different  points  may  a  landscape,  a 
waterfall,  a  mountain,  an  ancient  castle  be  viewed,  each 
presenting  some  different  aspect  to  the  painter,  each 
varied,  yet  each  true,  and  all  entering  into  the  proper 
and  full  conception  of  the  object.  On  moral  and  his 
torical  subjects  this  is  not  less  true  than  it  is  in  refer 
ence  to  mountains,  to  valleys,  to  waterfalls,  to  piles  of 
architectural  beauty  or  grandeur.  He  makes  no  as 
sumption  for  himself  who  surveys  from  his  own  point 
of  observation  what  has  been  painted  by  another  from 
his.  In  the  position  which  he  occupies,  and  in  the 
work  of  art  which  he  attempts,  there  is  no  implied  re 
flection  on  another,  (b)  On  the  great  subjects  of  relig 
ion  and  morals,  one  man's  reflection,  experience,  and  ob 
servation  may  suggest  something  of  value  which  may 
not  have  occurred  to  another.  His  own  mental  struc 
ture  maybe  different,  his  own  habits  of  thought  may  be 
different,  his  own  experience  in  the  world  may  be  differ 
ent,  his  own  opportunities  of  observation  may  be  differ 
ent  ;  and  it  is  no  reflection  on  another  one,  though  en 
gaged  in  the  same  general  purpose,  to  submit  his  own 
reflections  to  his  fellow-men,  (c)  It  may  be  true  that, 
while  there  are  great  advantages,  on  such  subjects, 
from  the  fact  of  being  devoted  to  one  great  line  of 


16  LECTURES    ON   THE 

study,  as  in  a  chair  of  theology,  and  in  the  ample  ac 
quaintance  which  may  be  derived  from  such  a  position 
with  all  that  has  been  written  by  others,  there  may  be 
advantages  in  the  labors  of  a  pastoral  life,  in  frequent 
contact  with  men,  in  meeting  the  difficulties  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  are  inquiring  on  the  subject  of  per 
sonal  religion,  which  may  be  of  not  less  value  in  the 
cause  of  truth  than  the  more  deliberate  and  learned  in 
structions  of  a  theological  chair,  and  which  may  assist 
those  who  are  preparing  for  the  work  of  the  ministry 
in  meeting  the  actual  difficulties  which  they  are  to  en 
counter  in  the  living  world,  (d)  I  may  observe  farther 
that  these  Lectures  are  designed  and  expected,  if  I  un 
derstand  the  purpose  of  the  founder  and  of  the  direct 
ors  of  the  seminary  in  making  the  arrangements  for 
their  delivery,  to  be  less  studied,  elaborate,  scientific, 
and  philosophical  than  those  which  are  delivered  in 
the  regular  course  of  instruction  in  the  seminary,  and 
which  are  especially  prepared  for  students  of  theology 
as  such.  It  is  the  purpose  in  the  "  Foundation"  to  form 
a  new  connecting  link  between  the  seminary  and  the 
churches,  to  impart  instruction  here  which  will  not 
only  benefit  those  who  are  hereafter  to  be  the  guides 
of  the  public  mind,  but  also,  in  union  with  them,  to  do 
something  to  diffuse  just  views  on  these  subjects  in  the 
community,  and  to  aid  those  who  are  at  present  act 
ing  their  parts  in  the  world,  as  well  as  those  who  shall 
be  the  actors  in  the  next  generation,  (e)  And,  once 
more,  I  may  observe  that  neither  my  friend  who  occu 
pies  that  chair  nor  myself  will  so  exhaust  the  subject  as 
to  leave  nothing  for  our  successors.  In  our  own  place 
and  generation  we  shall  each  find  enough  to  do;  in 
their  generation,  those  who  come  after  us  will  find  that 
there  is  an  ample  field  for  all  their  talents  in  the  work 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  17 

to  be  done  in  their  time.  The  Christian  "  apologists" 
of  the  early  centuries,  the  opposers  of  Celsus,  Porphyry, 
and  Julian,  had  enough  to  do  in  their  day;  Grotius, 
Leland,  and  Clarke  had  enough  to  do  in  theirs  ;  Butler, 
Lardner,  Paley,  and  Chalmers  in  theirs ;  in  our  day  a 
new  field,  demanding  new  powers  and  new  arguments 
in  answering  new  objections,  is  opened  to  us,  and  in 
time  to  come,  until  the  period  when  Christianity  shall 
triumph  over  all  the  earth,  the  enemies  of  Christianity 
will  be  careful  to  give,  each  in  their  age,  enough  for  the 
public  defenders  of  Christianity  to  do.  We,  in  our  age, 
have  a  work  to  do ;  those  who  come  after  us  will  have 
a  work  to  do  in  theirs. 

As  introductory  to  the  course  which  I  propose  to  de 
liver,  and  as  an  argument  on  the  general  subject,  it 
seems  proper  to  consider  the  capabilities  of  the  human 
mind  in  reference  to  the  general  subject  to  be  consider 
ed.  If  man  is  capable  himself  of  originating  a  system 
of  religion  that  will  be  all  that  is  needed  to  guide  him 
in  the  duties  of  life,  to  sustain  him  in  its  trials,  and  to 
prepare  him  for  the  future  world,  that  fact  would,  of 
course,  prove  a  revelation  to  be  unnecessary,  and  would 
at  the  same  time  prove  that  all  pretended  revelations 
are  false,  since  it  can  not  be  supposed  that  God  would 
give  by  miracle  a  special  revelation  when  he  had  al 
ready  furnished,  in  another  mode,  all  that  is  needful  for 
man,  or  that  there  would  be  two  methods  of  communi 
cating  the  divine  will  on  the  same  subject.  On  other 
subjects  than  religion  this  principle  is  every  where  ob 
served.  God  does  not  give  special  revelations  on  those 
subjects  which  are  quite  within  the  range 'of  the  hu 
man  powers,  and  where  there  may  be  a  healthful  exer 
cise  of  those  powers  in  ascertaining  what  is  true  and 


18  LECTURES    ON   THE 

what  is  good.  If,  for  the  sake  of  example,  it  be  admit 
ted  that  God  specially  instructed  Adam  in  regard  to 
the  appropriate  names  of  the  beasts  of  the  field  and  the 
fowls  of  the  air  (Gen.,  ii.,  19),  or  that  he,  with  his  own 
hands,  made  for  Adam  and  Eve  "  coats  of  skins  and 
clothed  them"  (Gen.,iii.,21),  or  that  he  taught  Noah 
how  to  construct  the  ark,  or  that  he  endowed  Bezaleel 
and  Aholiab  with  special  wisdom  in  building  the  tab 
ernacle,  "  to  devise  cunning  works,  to  work  in  gold,  and 
silver,  and  brass"  (Ex.,  xxxi.,  3-6),  yet  it  is  certain  that 
this  is  not  the  ordinary  method  in  which  he  endows 
men  for  the  useful  or  the  ornamental  arts  of  life,  nor  is 
this  the  method  on  which  this  subject  is  referred  to  in 
the  Bible.  The  principle  every  where  assumed  in  the 
Bible,  and  a  principle  on  which  undeniably  the  whole 
Bible  is  formed,  whether  that  book  is  a  revelation  or 
not,  is  that,  where  men  have  ample  powers  to  accom 
plish  what  is  needful  for  themselves,  there  is  no  special 
instruction  given  by  revelation.  ~No  book  is  more  des 
titute  of  information  on  the  common  arts  of  life,  on  ag 
riculture,  music,  and  the  sciences,  on  political  economy 
and  the  forms  of  government,  on  the  arts  of  raising 
grain,  of  working  metals,  of  mining,  or  of  cooking  food, 
on  the  structure  of  ships,  wagons,  roads,  or  canals,  than 
the  Bible.  All  these  are  left  to  the  invention  of  men, 
to  be  wrought  out  in  the  proper  employment  of  their 
own  powers,  with  the  presumption  that  man  is  compe 
tent  to  this ;  that  he  needs  no  special  instruction,  ami 
that  his  own  good  will  be  best  promoted  by  the  exer 
cise  of  his  own  powers  on  these  subjects. 

The  principle  is,  that  the  Bible  does  not  attempt  to 
give  knowledge  on  subjects  which  men  may  find  out 
themselves.  Agriculture,  grafting,  planting,  architect 
ure,  fishing,  ploughs,  hammers,  harrows,  machinery, 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHKISTIANITY.  19 

printing,  railroads,  steam,  the  telegraph  —  all  these  in 
due  time ;  all  by  the  skill  of  man.  Man  is  competent  to 
these  things.  There  is  no  need  of  a  revelation.  The 
world,  in  its  infancy,  was  not  prepared  for  these  things, 
and  a  revelation  in  regard  to  them  would  not  have 
been  understood.  It  was  better  to  raise  up  men  from 
time  to  time  who  would  strike  out  great  inventions 
when  the  world  needed  them  than  to  communicate  the 
knowledge  by  revelation ;  it  was  better  that  the  hu 
man  intellect  should  be  sharpened  and  disciplined  by 
these  discoveries;  it  was  better  that  men  should  be 
stimulated  by  the  hope  of  useful  inventions ;  and  it  was 
better  that  the  knowledge  of  them  should  be  brought 
on  the  stage  when  they  would  fit  into  human  society, 
than  to  anticipate  all,  and  render  the  human  powers 
flaccid  and  useless  by  a  revelation  anticipating  these 
things. 

If  religion  is  of  the  same  nature  as  this ;  if  man  is 
equally  competent  to  solve  the  great  questions  of  relig 
ion  that  pertain  to  him,  then  it  is  plain  that  religion 
would  have  been  left  in  this  manner,  and  that  a  revela 
tion  being  unnecessary,  none  would  have  been  given, 
and  consequently  that  all  pretended  revelations  are 
false.  The  enemies  of  the  Bible,  therefore,  are  pursuing 
a  legitimate  line  of  thought  in  endeavoring  to  show 
that  man  has  all  the  powers  necessary  to  ascertain  what 
is  needful  to  be  known  of  God,  and  consequently  that 
the  Bible  and  all  other  pretended  revelations  are 
false. 

In  considering  now  the  particular  subject  before  us 
— the  limitations  of  the  human  mind  on  the  subject  of 
religion — it  will  be  proper  to  direct  ydlir  attention  first 
to  the  limitations  on  the  subject  from  the  nature  of  the 
human  mind  itself,  and  then  the  illustrations  which 


20  LECTUKES    ON   THE 

have  been  furnished  by  the  results  of  the  experiments 
which  have  been  made. 

The  particular  thoughts  necessary  to  be  presented 
under  the  first  of  these  topics — the  limitations  on  the 
subject  from  the  nature  of  the  mind  itself— are  the  fol 
lowing  :  those  limitations  in  the  faculties  of  the  mind 
in  respect  to  the  processes  of  reasoning ;  the  limitations 
in  the  power  of  intuition ;  and  the  limitations  in  the 
instruments  which  man  employs  in  his  discoveries,  or  in 
enlarging  the  scope  of  his  natural  vision. 

(1.)  The  powers  of  mind  —  created  mind  —  mind  as 
found  in  man — seem  vast,  are  vast.  It  is  not  necessary 
for  us,  in  exalting  revelation,  or  in  showing  the  necessi 
ty  of  revelation,  to  disparage  or  underrate  those  powers. 
The  developments  of  mind  in  the  ordinary  processes  of 
society,  and  in  the  discoveries  which  men  have  made  in 
the  sciences,  lifting  the  whole  race  to  a  higher  level, 
have  been  amazing.  This  is  especially  so  when  God, 
departing  from  the  ordinary  course  of  things,  creates  a 
great  intellect  as  he  originally  created  great  mount 
ains,  or  rocks,  or  oceans,  or  as  he  creates  great  worlds 
as  illustrations  of  what  he  can  do ;  as  showing  how  he 
might  have  made  the  race ;  as  showing,  perhaps,  how 
he  does  make  other  races ;  as  furnishing  a  higher  il 
lustration  than  ordinary  of  what  he  himself  is,  lifting 
man,  as  by  a  sudden  elevation,  toward  himself.  Thus, 
in  the  upheavings  of  the  lands  in  the  old  geological 
periods,  in  general  the  lands  upheaved  were  low  plains 
or  elevated  plateaus  on  a  level,  or  gentle  eminences 
diversifying  the  landscape,  or  here  and  there  loftier 
mountains — the  ranges  of  the  Andes,  the  Alleghanies, 
the  Apennines,  the  Alps,  while  at  great  intervals  there 
stands  the  lofty  Dhavalagiri,  the  Chimborazo,  the  So- 
rata  of  Nevada,  and  Mont  Blanc,  rising  far  into  loftier 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  21 

atmospheres,  as  a  few  men,  like  Newton,  stand  far 
above  the  ordinary  individuals  of  the  race. 

There  are  men — a  few  men — of  such  capacity  that 
they  seem  to  approach  almost  all  subjects  with  equal 
ease ;  men  who  have  by  intuition,  as  Pascal  had,  what 
other  men  secure  by  slow  processes  and  by  long-con 
tinued  trial;  who  begin  where  other  men. leave  off; 
"  many-sided"  men,  to  whom  all  subjects  appear  equal 
ly  easy,  and  with  whom  it  seems  to  be  a  mere  matter 
of  will  and  choice  what  particular  department  they 
shall  pursue  to  make  themselves  immortal. 

But,  while  this  appears  to  be  so,  the  range  of  subjects 
on  which  any  man,  however  richly  endowed,  may  dis 
tinguish  and  immortalize  himself,  is  very  limited,  and  is 
confined  within  very  narrow  and  very  carefully-defined 
boundaries.  There  is,  and  there  has  been,  no  "  universal 
genius."  There  is,  and  there  has  been,  no  man  whose 
capacities  are  equally  adapted  to  all  the  subjects  of 
science  and  art,  of  poetry,  rhetoric,  and  eloquence  ;  of 
war,  of  statesmanship,  of  invention,  and  of  practical 
life,  in  which  they  might  equally  acquire  distinction. 
Society,  indeed,  required  in  its  adjustments  that  within 
a  limited  range  the  powers  of  a  man  might  be  adapted 
— perhaps  equally  adapted — to  any  one  of  a  number  of 
pursuits ;  that  in  any  one  of  them  within  that  range  he 
might  be  successful  or  might  excel.  This  was  neces 
sary,  in  order  that  at  any  one  time  there  might  be  tal 
ent  enough  on  the  earth  for  all  the  necessary  objects  of 
life,  and  that  there  might  be,  within  a  reasonable  range, 
the  liberty  of  a  choice — a  concession  to  human  freedom 
and  responsibility.  But  the  range  is  a  limited  one,  and 
within  that  a  man  must  make  his  choice.  He  must  be 
a  farmer,  or  a  seaman,  or  a  mechanic,  or  a  musician,  or  a 
poet,  or  a  merchant,  or  a  philosopher,  or  an  artist ;  he 


22  LECTURES    ON   THE 

can  not  be  all.  Between  perhaps  four  or  five  of  these 
he  must  make  his  choice,  and  within  that  range  he 
must  determine  how  his  life  is  to  be  spent.  It  is  rare 
that  a  man  is  distinguished  in  more  than  one  of  these 
things.  Michael  Angelo  was,  indeed,  distinguished, 
perhaps  equally,  as  a  painter,  sculptor,  and  architect  ;* 
Shakspeare  was  equally  distinguished  in  comedy,  in 
farce,  and  in  tragedy ;  and  there  is  now  one  living  man 
among  us — a  foreignerf — who,  it  is  said,  has  already, 
in  four  separate  and  distinct  departments  of  science, 
achieved  in  each  a  reputation,  a  like  distinction  in  any 
one  of  which  would  have  placed  him  at  the  head  of 
that  particular  science.  This  "  play"  or  this  variety  of 
endowment  is  given  to  men  not  only  that  they  may 
have  a  choice,  but  that  there  may  be  at  any  one  time 
on  the  earth  talent  enough  for  all  that  talent  is  to  do 
in  that  one  age. 

Again,  there  is  a  necessary  limitation  in  regard  to 
the  attainments  which  men  may  make,  as  compared 
with  what  remains  that  is  as  yet  unknown.  We  all 
remember  the  remark  of  Newton,  "child-like  sage;"]; 

*  This  idea  is  expressed  on  his  tomb  in  the   church  of  Santa 
Croce,  in  Florence.     Beneath  the  monument  there  are  three  statues, 
personifying  Painting,  Sculpture,  and  Architecture,  and  at  the  base  of 
the  monument  an  inscription,  of  which  the  following  is  a  part : 
^  "  Michaeli  Angelo  Bonaratio 

E  vetusta  Simoniorum  Familia. 

Sculptori,  Pictori  et  Architecto 

Fama  omnibus  notissimo." 
t  Agassiz. 

%  "I  do  not  know  what  I  may  appear  to  the  world,  but  to  myself 
I  seem  to  have  been  only  like  a  boy  playing  on  the  sea-shore,  and 
diverting  myself  in  now  and  then  finding  a  smoother  pebble  or  a 
prettier  shell  than  ordinary,  while  the  great  ocean  of  truth  lay  all 
undiscovered  before  me." — Brewster's  Life  of  Newton,  pp.  300,  301, 
Harper's  ed.,  1832. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  23 

and  we  remember,  too,  the  sarcastic  remarks  of  Pope 
on  the  discoveries  of  Newton  himself,  showing  how  lit 
tle,  after  all  the  discoveries  made  by  him,  as  compared 
with  the  knowledge   of  higher  intelligences,  may  be, 
and  what,  in  this  respect,  is  the  general  condition  of 
mankind  on  the  subject  of  knowledge:      £ 
"  Superior  beings,  when  of  late  they  saw 
A  mortal  man  unfold  all  nature's  law, 
Admired  such  wisdom  in  an  earthly  shape, 
And  showed  a  Newton  as  we  show  an  ape." 

After  all,  how  limited  is  the  range  of  human  thought 
and  knowledge  !  We  are  to  remember  that  ordinarily 
man  is  compelled  to  spend  one  third  of  the  length  of 
life  in  acquiring  what  has  been  known  before,  and  put 
ting  himself  in  a  position  to  b$gin  his  own  investiga 
tions,  as  if  one  preparing  to  explore  distant  continents 
should  be  compelled  to  spend  one  third  of  his  days  in 
reaching  it ;  we  are  to  remember  that  any  man  is  liable 
to  be  cut  down  at  any  moment,  his  career  of  brilliant 
discovery  but  just  begun ;  we  are  to  remember  that 
the  faculties  of  man  begin  soon  to  decay,  and  that  the 
imbecility  of  age,  if  life  is  lengthened  out,  is  almost  like 
the  imbecility  of  childhood — life  ending  as  it  began ; 
we  are  to  remember  that  the  active  average  life  of  man, 
in  which  he  must  do  all  that  he  is  to  do,  is  but  little 
over  twenty  years  ;  and  we  are  to  remember,  also,  that 
the  range  of  his  inquiries  is  limited  by  the  fact  that 
they  must  be  Avithin  the  scope  of  his  reason,  where  he 
may  have  instruments  to  aid  him,  and  where  he  may 
have  the  light  of  other  ages  to  guide  him.  But  what 
if  there  are  boundless  fields  wholly  beyond  that  range ; 
if  there  are  worlds  which  he  can  not  penetrate  ;  if 
there  is  an  infinity  in  God  in  reference  to  which  he 
has  no  faculties  or  powers  to  investigate  or  understand 


26  LECTURES    ON   THE 

or,  to  make  the  assertion  larger,  that  it  is  of  the  nature 
of  mind,  as  such,  to  do  this — the  mind  of  God,  and  of 
all  minds  made  in  his  image.  We  can  not  conceive  of 
God  without  this  power ;  we  can  not  doubt  that  he 
could  endow  created  mind  with  this  power  as  well  as 
with  any  other  power,  making  it  thus  in  his  own  image, 
or  so  that  it  would  represent  or  express  himself;  and 
we  can  not  limit  him  in  regard  to  the  extent  to  which 
he  could  endow  mind  in  this  as  well  as  in  any  other  re 
spect,  except  that  it  can  not  equal  his  own  infinity. 
There  must  be  a  limit,  or  all  beings  thus  made  would  be 
gods,  and  instead  of  one  God,  the  universe  would  be  full 
of  gods. 

But  that  God  has  this  power  of  looking  at  once  into 
truth,  of  understanding  its  nature,  of  separating  it  from 
error,  without  the  slow  process  of  reasoning,  there  can 
be  no  doubt. 

(b)  That  man  has  this  power,  to  a  certain  extent,  is 
apparent  from  our   own  consciousness.     The  belief  in 
mathematical  axioms  or  first  principles  is  founded  on 
this.     We  look  at  the  truth  at  once  without  any  medi 
um  or  intermediate  idea.     We  could  not  be  assisted  in 
this  by  any  intermediate  idea.     We  could  not  be  made 
to  doubt  the  truth  by  any  objections  that  could  be 
urged.     That  the  whole  is  greater  than  a  part,  that  the 
whole  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  all  the  parts,  that  if  equals 
are  added  to  equals  the  sum  will  be  equal,  are  points 
which  do  not  and  can  not  depend  on   reasoning,  nor 
could  we  reason  at  all  if  there  were  not  such  points  on 
which  all  men  agree. 

(c)  But  it  is  obvious  that  the  range  of  this  must  be 
very  different  in  different  minds ;  nor,  as  has  been  al 
ready  intimated,  is  it  possible  where,  short  of  infinity, 
the  limit  might  be  made.    To  the  mass  of  men  the  num- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  27 

ber  of  such  truths  is  not  large.  To  some  minds  truths, 
which  to  others  could  be  learned  only  as  the  result  of 
labored  reasoning,  are  a  mere  matter  of  intuition.  To 
most  minds,  for  example,  in  studying  Euclid,  after  a 
very  few  statements  of  that  kind  which  are  laid  down 
as  maxims  or  axioms  which  all  men  will  assent  to,  ev 
ery  successive  proposition  is  believed  only  as  the  result 
of  clear  demonstration  in  some  labored  process  of  rea 
soning  ;  to  Newton  all  these  propositions  were  as  ax 
ioms  not  demanding  any  proof,  and  read  as  axioms  are ; 
to  Pascal  they  led  on  one  another  by  a  power  of  their 
own,  which  he  represented,  when  a  boy,  on  the  floor  by 
lines  and  bars  of  his  own  construction. 

(d)  As  pertaining  to  religion,  as  in  other  matters, 
this  subject  presents  itself  in  two  forms :  the  one  is 
that  of  originating  truth,  or  declaring  what  truth  is ; 
tho  other  is  that,  more  common,  of  judging  of  truth 
when  it  is  presented  to  the  mind ;  of  determining  wheth 
er  it  is  truth,  and  of  rejecting  it  if  it  does  not  commend 
itself  to  the  mind  as  true.*  The  latter  is  Rationalism, 
the  former  is  the  claim  of  Deism;  both  are  comprised 
in  the  term  Transcendentalism.  Much  of  this  is  found 
in  Plato,  more  of  it  in  Kant ;  much  in  all  Transcendent- 
alists  and  Rationalists ;  more  by  most  men  in  judging 
in  regard  to  the  evidences  of  a  revealed  religion  than 
they  are  aware  of;  much  is  properly  exercised  in  exam 
ining  the  claims  of  any  religion,  true  or  false.  There  are 

*  Thus  Wegscheider  represents  the  claims  of  Eationalists :  "  They 
claim  for  sound  reason  the  power  of  deciding  upon  any  religious 
doctrine  whatsoever,  derived  from  a  supposed  supernatural  revela 
tion,  and  of  determining  the  argument  for  it,  to  be  made  out  only  ac 
cording  to  the  laws  of  thought  and  action  implanted  in  reason." — 
Inst.  Theol.,  §  10,  quoted  in  Mansel,  Limits  of  Religious  Thought,  p. 
234,  235. 


28  LECTURES    ON   THE 

certain  convictions  engraven  on  the  human  mind  in  re 
gard  to  truth  to  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  advert 
in  another  part  of  this  course,*  which  must  be  met  by 
a  pretended  revelation,  or  it  can  not  be  received. 
There  is  much  in  man  that  contributes  to  the  reception 
of  a  system  of  truth  in  a  revelation  when  it  is  proposed, 
and  that  gives  it  a  power  over  the  soul  which  nothing 
can  destroy.  It  is  in  a  large  degree  owing  to  this  that 
a  true  religion  makes  its  way  in  the  world,  and  in  a 
large  degree  also  it  is  owing  to  this  that  the  world  is 
kept  from  being  imposed  on  by  the  pretensions  of  a 
false  religion. 

(e)  When  we  ask,  however,  whether  this  is  sufficient 
— whether  this  is  all  that  man  needs,  we  are  met  by 
such  answers  as  the  following :  (l.)  There  is  no  agree 
ment  among  those  who  rely  on  this  as  to  what  is  the 
true  system.  From  Plato  downward  to  Kant  and 
Comte,  men  have  speculated  on  this  point,  and  in  re 
gard  to  what  is  claimed  under  this  system — the  "  true," 
the  "  absolute,"  the  "  infinite" — as  to  what  God  is,  what 
man  is,  or  what  is  the  moral  system  of  the  universe,  it 
is  impossible  to  refer  to  any  system  on  which  men  have 
speculated  at  all,  in  respect  to  which  there  is  a  greater 
variety  of  Opinion,  or  in  which  more  that  is  incompre 
hensible  has  been  proposed  to  the  faith  of  mankind.  It 
would  be  very  easy  for  any  one  to  make  extracts  from 
Hegel  and  from  Kant  so  far  above  common  apprehen- 
hension,  so  mystical,  so  difficult  of  interpretation,  so 
destitute  of  apparent  meaning,  as  to  turn  the  whole 
matter  into  ridicule  if  it  should  be  held  seriously  that 
this  was  to  be  the  faith  and  the  guide  of  mankind  at 
large.  Besides,  who  is  to  decide  which  is  the  true  sys 
tem  ?  Or  who,  holding  one  system  on  this  theory,  has 
*  In  the  IXth  Lecture. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  29 

a  right  to  call  in  question  the  truth  of  the  system  pre 
ferred  by  another?  (2.)  But  it  is  to  be  observed  far 
ther  that  there  are — there  must  be,  truths  lying  beyond 
the  range  of  intuition  —  of  man's  powers.  Only  the 
infinite  can  look  into  and  comprehend  the  infinite. 
There  were  profound  depths  in  the  minds  of  Newton 
and  Bacon  which  a  child  of  four  years  of  age  could  not 
fathom — which  no  man  could  fathom  who  had  not  a 
mind  like  theirs.  It  is  a  matter  of  the  plainest  common 
sense  likewise  that  there  must  be  profound  depths  in 
the  mind  of  God  which  none  can  fathom  who  is  not  the 
equal  of  God.  Can  the  arms  of  a  child  wield  and  gov 
ern  the  world?  Can  a  quart  -  measure  take  in  that 
which  would  fill  the  great  "  tun"  at  Heidelberg  ? 
Could  Loch  Katrine  contain  all  the  waters  of  the 
ocean?  There  must  be  truths  respecting  God  which 
man  can  not  know  unless  God  shall  reveal  them. 
There  are  things  in  the  mind  of  the  stranger  that  we 
casually  meet,  though  on  the  same  level  with  ourselves, 
which  we  can  not  know  unless  he  shall  choose  to  dis 
close  them.  He  has  the  power  of  hiding  them  forever 
from  our  knowledge. 

(3.)  There  is  one  other  thought  on  this  point  of  the 
subject.  I  have  adverted  to  the  limitations  of  the  fac 
ulties  of  the  mind  in  the  ordinary  processes  of  reason 
ing  and  in  the  power  of  intuition.  I  shall  now  advert 
to  the  defect  in  the  limitation  of  the  instruments  which 
man  employs  in  his  discoveries,  or  in  enlarging  his 
scope  of  natural  vision.  The  point  now  to  be  made  is, 
that  the  means  or  instruments  which  man  employs  so 
successfully  in  enlarging  the  range  of  his  natural  pow 
ers  do  not  disclose  or  reveal  God.  Those  means  or  in 
struments  are,  in  the  first  place,  limited  to  their  own 
particular  range  of  discovery,  and  can  be  employed 


30  LECTURES    ON   THE 

only  in  that  direction,  or  can  not  be  employed  to  aid 
man  in  more  than  one  particular  line.  The  telescope 
discloses  wonders,  but  it  can  not  be  employed  by  the 
chemist,  the  metallurgist,  the  engineer.  The  tests  of 
the  chemist  and  his  blow-pipe  accomplish  wonders,  but 
they  can  riot  be  employed  in  the  purposes  of  astronomy. 
The  electrical  machine  accomplishes  wonders,  but  it 
can  not  be.  employed  to  determine  the  distance  and 
magnitude  of  the  planets,  the  height  of  the  atmosphere, 
or  the  cause  of  the  tides.  Least  of  all  can  any  of  these 
be  employed  on  moral  subjects.  They  can  not  determ 
ine  the  great  questions  about  God,  and  the  nature  of 
the  human  soul,  and  the  destiny  of  man  in  distant 
woii'ds.  The  astronomer  directs  his  glass  to  the  blue 
fields  of  ether,  and  brings  suns  and  systems  to  view 
before  unknown  to  man,  but  he  does  not  see  God  on 
his  throne.  The  electrical  machine  may  be  turned  for 
ever,  throwing  out  a  continuous  stream  of  light,  but  it 
does  not  reveal  God,  or  cast  a  ray  of  light  on  the  des 
tinies  of  the  human  soul.  All  these  are  limited  to  their 
proper  objects — all  come  short  of  revealing  God. 

Such,  then,  are  some  of  the  limitations  of  the  human 
mind  as  suggested  by  the  nature  of  the  case. 

We  turn  to  the  next  general  point  proposed  to  be 
considered,  to  the  illustrations  which  have  been  fur 
nished  on  the  subject  by  the  experiment  which  the 
world  has  been  making  to  answer  the  great  questions 
which  it  must  be  the  province  of  a  revelation  to  an 
swer,  if  a  revelation  is  given  to  man. 

This  need  not  detain  us  long,  though  the  subject  is 
one  that  might  be  pursued  to  much  greater  length  than 
the  limits  of  these  Lectures  will  allow. 

The  general  remark  to  be  illustrated  is,  that  the  trial 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  31 

has  been  made,  and  so  made  that  it  is  not  necessary 
that  it  should  be  repeated. 

If  a  revelation  was  to  be  given  to  man ;  if  it  be  as 
sumed  for  a  moment  that  such  was  the  divine  purpose, 
it  would  seem  to  be  not  an  unreasonable  expectation 
that  man  himself  should  be  allowed  to  make  the  exper 
iment  to  see  whether  he  could  do  without  one ;  that  is, 
whether  such  a  revelation  was  necessary  for  man.  This 
may  be  presumed  to  be  reasonable,  because  (a)  it  would 
settle  a  great  question  forever,  disposing  man  to  re 
ceive  and  believe  the  revelation  if  he  himself  failed,  and 
(b)  it  would  be  in  accordance  with  the  ordinary  meth 
od  of  the  divine  arrangements  in  other  things.  What 
ever  man  can  do,  it  is,  as  before  remarked,  left  for  him 
to  do ;  and  whatever  God  may  do  for  man,  it  is  com 
monly  preceded  by  the  effort  of  man  himself  in  that 
direction.  Great  discoveries  in  science  and  art  are  thus 
left  for  man  to  accomplish,  if  they  are  within  his  pow 
er  ;  if  the  ordinary  powers  of  man  are  insufficient  for 
them,  God  creates  and  brings  upon  the  stage  some 
great  mind,  endowed  in  that  direction  beyond  the  or 
dinary  powers  of  man,  like  Bacon  or  Newton,  Watt  or 
Fulton,  Whitney  or  Morse,  elevated  above  common 
men  on  these  subjects  as  Isaiah  or  David  were  above 
ordinary  men  in  the  knowledge  of  spiritual  things. 

The  trial  on  this  subject,  as  it  has  actually  occurred 
in  the  world,  has  related  to  two  points :  to  the  powers 
of  man  in  relation  to  religion  in  general,  and  to  those 
powers  in  relation  to  a  "  book-revelation." 

In  regard  to  the  former  of  these,  the  powers  of  man 
in  relation  to  religion  in  general,  I  remark,  first,  that 
the  time  allowed  to  man  for  the  experiment  was  suffi 
ciently  long  to  permit  the  experiment  to  be  fairly 
made.  If  we  assume  now  that  Christianity  had  its 


32  LECTURES    ON  THE 

origin  at  the  time  commonly  ascribed  to  it,  about 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  then,  according  to  the 
common  chronology,  there  were  four  thousand  years 
previous  in  which  the  experiment  was*  to  be  made. 
According  to  Chevalier  Bunsen,  Lepsius,  and  others 
of  that  school,  there  were  not  far  from  twenty  thou 
sand  years  from  the  time  when  man  appeared  upon 
the  earth.  It  could  not  be  denied  that,  taking  either 
position,  the  time  was  sufficiently  long  to  admit  of  a 
fair  trial  on  this  subject  in  regard  to  the  capability  of 
the  human  powers  to  devise  a  system  of  religion ;  for, 
if  man  could  not  devise  a  system  that  would  meet  his 
wants  in  that  time,  it  might  be  reasonably  doubted 
whether  he  could  do  it  at  all.  It  may  be  added  also, 
that,  on  the  supposition  that  vast  and  eternal  interests 
were  connected  in  any  way  with  embracing  a  true  sys 
tem  of  religion,  it  might  be  difficult  to  reconcile  it  with 
any  just  notions  of  benevolence  in  the  Deity  if  the 
time  had  been  longer,  and  if  those  interests  were  ex 
posed  to  farther  peril.  Indeed,  one  great  difficulty  now 
to  be  explained,  on  the  supposition  that  the  revelation 
of  a  plan  of  salvation  was  delayed  so  long,  is  to  recon 
cile  that  fact  with  the  benevolence  of  God,  leaving, 
during  that  long  period,  the  eternal  welfare  of  so  many 
millions  of  souls  to  be  jeoparded  by  the  delay  in  giving 
a  revelation  to  man :  a  difficulty  which  has  its  parallel, 
however,  in  the  fact  that  so  many  millions  were  suffer 
ed  to  die  of  pestilence,  of  the  plague,  and  of  fever,  be 
fore  the  healing  art  was  in  any  way  perfected,  and 
while  the  substances  constituting  the  materia  medica 
of  the  world  were  actually  in  existence,  but  were  as 
yet  undiscovered  by  man. 

The  next  thing  to  be  observed  in  regard  to  this  trial 
is,  that  the  character  of  the  mind  mainly  employed  in 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  33 


in 


the  experiment  was  all  that  could  be  demanded 
such  an  experiment.  If  we  were  asked  which  of  the 
classes  of  mind  that  have  existed  on  the  earth  would 
be  best  adapted  for  original  investigations  of  this  na 
ture,  we  should  say  that  the  qualifications  would  be 
most  likely  to  be  found  in  the  Hindu  mind,  the  Arabic, 
the  Greek,  and  the  Teutonic.  These,  indeed,  in  some  re 
spects  run  into  each  other,  and  may  perhaps  be  regard 
ed  as  of  the  same  type  or  class ;  but  of  all  the  intellects 
that  God  has  made  in  the  world,  a  great  question  of 
this  kind  could  be  more  safely  intrusted  to  these  classes 
of  mind  than  to  any  other. 

Now,  laying  out  of  view  at  present  all  reference  to 
the  others,  it  may  be  said  that  of  these  classes  of  mind 
the  Greek  was  better  adapted  to  this  inquiry  than 
either  of  those  which  have  been  referred  to.  That 
mind  was,  in  some  respects,  the  best  that  the  world  has 
seen — as  if  God  had  created  it  for  the  very  purpose  of 
settling  forever  this  great  inquiry.  For  acuteness,  for 
depth,  for  accurate  analysis,  for  subtle  philosophical  dis 
tinctions,  for  fervor,  and  for  enthusiasm — being  equally 
fitted  for  eloquence,  for  poetry,  and  for  philosophy — 
that  mind  stands  pre-eminent  among  all  that  God  has 
made.  The  Greeks  had  a  language,  too,  fitted,  above 
all  others  spoken  among  men,  for  such  inquiries — a  lan 
guage  in  which,  the  highest  conceptions  of  philosophy 
and  religion  could  be.  better  expressed  than  in  any  oth 
er,  and  in  which  the  nicest  shades  of  thought  could  be 
perpetuated — the  language,  in  fact,  adopted  by  the  au 
thors  of  the  New  Testament  under,  as  we  believe,  the 
guidance  of  the  Holy  Ghost — selected  from  all  the  lan 
guages  of  the  world  as  best  adapted  to  express  the 
great  ideas  of  the  Christian  Revelation. 

The  Greeks,  too,  gave  themselves  to  this  inquiry, 
B2 


34  LECTURES    ON    THE 

fully  impressed  with  its  importance  and  its  vastness, 
as  if  under  the  impression  themselves  that  the  great 
problem  had  been  intrusted  to  their  hands.  They 
were  not  insensible  to  the  magnitude  of  the  questions 
at  issue,  and  alike  in  their  mental  acuteness.  in  their 
language,  and  in  their  zeal,  they  have  shown  that  the 
great  problem  was  well  intrusted  to  their  hands.  If 
the  question  were  now  asked,  To  what  people  of  all 
lands  and  ages  such  a  question  could  be  best  submit 
ted  ?  there  would  be  but  one  answer — that  the  question 
whether  man  could  originate  or  discover  a  religion  that 
would  be  fitted  for  human  wants  in  all  ages  could  be 
most  appropriately  and  safely  lodged  with  the  Greeks. 

The  result  of  the  trial  is  now  before  the  world.  The 
trial  is  complete.  It  is  not  to  be  repeated.  Whether 
Christianity  is  true  or  false,  it  may  be  assumed  now 
that  a  more  hopeful  trial  could  not  now  be  entered  on ; 
it  may  be  assumed  that  if  there  is  no  revelation  given 
to  man,  then  man,  on  the  subject  of  religion,  must  give 
himself  up  to  despair. 

There  is  no  system  of  religion  that  man  has  devised 
that  meets  the  wants  of  the  race  ;  there  is  none,  unless 
it  be  Christianity,  that  the  race  in  its  progress  will  care 
to  perpetuate.  None  of  the  religions  which  man  orig 
inated  before  the  Christian  era,  if  we  except  Hinduism 
and  Buddhism,  have  now  an  existence  in  the  world, 
and  it  will  not  be  pretended  by  those  who  reject  the 
Christian  revelation  that  these  meet  the  wants  of  men, 
or  that  they  can  be  perpetuated  in  the  advancing  pe 
riods  of  the  world. 

All  the  others  have  perished — perished  with  the  em 
pires  where  they  were  originated ;  perished  with  the 
priesthood  to  which  they  gave  power;  perished  with 
the  temples  and  altars  which  time  has  overthrown — 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  35 

perished  never  to  be  revived.  The  temples  of  Baalbec 
and  Karnak  will  not  be  rebuilt ;  the  altars  of  Mexico 
will  not  be  reconstructed ;  the  Parthenon  will  not  be 
repaired;  and  the  Pantheon  will  not  again  welcome 
the  gods  of  all  nations.  These  ancient  systems  of  re 
ligion  were  dying  out  when  Christianity  appeared,  and 
would  have  died  at  any  rate.  It  is  a  fine  remark  of 
Augustine  that "  Christ  appeared  to  the  men  of  a  de 
crepit,  dying  world,  that  while  all  around  them  was 
fading,  they  might  receive  through  him  a  new,  youth 
ful  life."*  It  was  not  in  the  power  of  Julian,  with  all 
the  influence  and  wealth  of  the  world  at  his  command, 
to  quicken  the  old  Roman  Paganism  into  life  again ;  it 
was  the  task  of  Mr.  Gibbon  to  record  the  dying  out  of 
the  old  system,  whatever  might  be  his  record  in  regard 
to  the  new. 

In  particular,  it  pertains  to  my  argument  to  remark 
that  the  system  of  the  Greeks,  the  result  of  the  highest 
wisdom  of  man,  has  departed  forever.  That  religion 
has  ceased  altogether ;  the  "  elegant  mythology"  of 
the  Greeks,  as  Mr.  Gibbon  calls  it,  has  passed  away. 
There  is  not  a  vestige  of  it  remaining.  There  is  not 
now  an  altar,  even  in  Athens,  where  Paul  saw  so  many, 
where  a  heathen  god  is  worshiped ;  there  is  no  one 
there  erected  to  an  "  unknown  God."  Every  altar  that 
stood  there  in  the  time  of  Paul  has  long  since  been 
overthrown,  not  to  be  rebuilt ;  the  splendid  temples  on 
which  his  eye  rested  when  he  stood  on  Mars'  Hill 
have  disappeared.  Even  the  Parthenon  is  in  ruins, 
and  there  has  not  been  vitality  enough  to  perpetuate 
it  in  its  beauty  as  a  work  of  art ;  as  a  structure  for  the 
worship  of  Minerva  it  is  to  be  entered  no  more  forever. 

There  was  nothing  in  the  ancient  religion  of  Greece, 
*  Neander,  Church  History,  i.,  77. 


34  LECTURES    ON    THE 

fully  impressed  with  its  importance  and  its  vastness, 
as  if  under  the  impression  themselves  that  the  great 
problem  had  been  intrusted  to  their  hands.  They 
were  not  insensible  to  the  magnitude  of  the  questions 
at  issue,  and  alike  in  their  mental  acuteness.  in  their 
language,  and  in  their  zeal,  they  have  shown  that  the 
great  problem  was  well  intrusted  to  their  hands.  If 
the  question  were  now  asked,  To  what  people  of  all 
lands  and  ages  such  a  question  could  be  best  submit 
ted  ?  there  would  be  but  one  answer — that  the  question 
whether  man  could  originate  or  discover  a  religion  that 
would  be  fitted  for  human  wants  in  all  ages  could  be 
most  appropriately  and  safely  lodged  with  the  Greeks. 

The  result  of  the  trial  is  now  before  the  world.  The 
trial  is  complete.  It  is  not  to  be  repeated.  Whether 
Christianity  is  true  or  false,  it  may  be  assumed  now 
that  a  more  hopeful  trial  could  not  now  be  entered  on ; 
it  may  be  assumed  that  if  there  is  no  revelation  given 
to  man,  then  man,  on  the  subject  of  religion,  must  give 
himself  up  to  despair. 

There  is  no  system  of  religion  that  man  has  devised 
that  meets  the  wants  of  the  race  ;  there  is  none,  unless 
it  be  Christianity,  that  the  race  in  its  progress  will  care 
to  perpetuate.  None  of  the  religions  which  man  orig 
inated  before  the  Christian  era,  if  we  except  Hinduism 
and  Buddhism,  have  now  an  existence  in  the  world, 
and  it  will  not  be  pretended  by  those  who  reject  the 
Christian  revelation  that  these  meet  the  wants  of  men, 
or  that  they  can  be  perpetuated  in  the  advancing  pe 
riods  of  the  world. 

All  the  others  have  perished — perished  with  the  em 
pires  where  they  were  originated ;  perished  with  the 
priesthood  to  which  they  gave  power;  perished  with 
the  temples  and  altars  which  time  has  overthrown — 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  35 

perished  never  to  be  revived.  The  temples  of  Baalbec 
and  Karnak  will  not  be  rebuilt ;  the  altars  of  Mexico 
will  not  be  reconstructed ;  the  Parthenon  will  not  be 
repaired;  and  the  Pantheon  will  not  again  welcome 
the  gods  of  all  nations.  These  ancient  systems  of  re 
ligion  were  dying  out  when  Christianity  appeared,  and 
would  have  died  at  any  rate.  It  is  a  fine  remark  of 
Augustine  that "  Christ  appeared  to  the  men  of  a  de 
crepit,  dying  world,  that  while  all  around  them  was 
fading,  they  might  receive  through  him  a  new,  youth 
ful  life."*  It  was  not  in  the  power  of  Julian,  with  all 
the  influence  and  wealth  of  the  world  at  his  command, 
to  quicken  the  old  Roman  Paganism  into  life  again ;  it 
was  the  task  of  Mr.  Gibbon  to  record  the  dying  out  of 
the  old  system,  whatever  might  be  his  record  in  regard 
to  the  new. 

In  particular,  it  pertains  to  my  argument  to  remark 
that  the  system  of  the  Greeks,  the  result  of  the  highest 
wisdom  of  man,  has  departed  forever.  That  religion 
has  ceased  altogether ;  the  "  elegant  mythology"  of 
the  Greeks,  as  Mr.  Gibbon  calls  it,  has  passed  away. 
There  is  not  a  vestige  of  it  remaining.  There  is  not 
now  an  altar,  even  in  Athens,  where  Paul  saw  so  many, 
where  a  heathen  god  is  worshiped ;  there  is  no  one 
there  erected  to  an  "  unknown  God."  Every  altar  that 
stood  there  in  the  time  of  Paul  has  long  since  been 
overthrown,  not  to  be  rebuilt ;  the  splendid  temples  on 
which  his  eye  rested  when  he  stood  on  Mars'  Hill 
have  disappeared.  Even  the  Parthenon  is  in  ruins, 
and  there  has  not  been  vitality  enough  to  perpetuate 
it  in  its  beauty  as  a  work  of  art ;  as  a  structure  for  the 
worship  of  Minerva  it  is  to  be  entered  no  more  forever. 

There  was  nothing  in  the  ancient  religion  of  Greece, 
*  Neander,  Church  History,  i.,  77. 


36  LECTURES    ON   THE 

or  in  her  philosophy  as  bearing  on  religion,  that  the 
world  could  lay  hold  of  as  worth  perpetuating,  and  the 
religion  of  Greece,  the  highest  result  of  human  wisdom 
— of  the  speculation  of  the  profoundest  and  acutest  in 
tellect  of  the  world — has  departed ;  the  ruin  of  the  an 
cient  religion  is  universal.  Not  more  entire  is  the  ruin 
of  kingdoms,  dynasties,  empires — of  thrones  and  pal 
aces — than  is  the  ruin  of  temples  and  altars.  All  lie  in 
promiscuous  ruin :  Karnak,  Baalbec,  Birs  Nimroud  in 
Babylon ;  the  splendid  temples  in  Athens  and  in  Cor 
inth  ;  the  temples  of  Jupiter,  and  Janus,  and  Apollo — all 
in  Home  save  the  little  temple  of  Ceres  and  the  Pan 
theon — all  are  in  ruin.  No  part  of  the  world  is  now 
influenced  in  the  slightest  degree  by  the  Egyptian,  the 
Persian,  the  Assyrian,  the  Roman,  the  Greek  religions, 
by  the  religion  of  the  Druids,  or  of  any  of  the  old  Teu 
tonic  or  Scythian  races. 

It  would  be  but  carrying  out  this  view  to  remark 
that  the  world,  as  left  to  itself,  has  made  no  advances 
since.  Hinduism  indeed  survives,  but  it  has  made  no 
progress,  and  it  has  not  commended  itself  to  man  as 
the  religion  which  he  needs  as  civilization  advances. 
Buddhism  survives,  but  it  also  has  made  no  progress  in 
character,  or  in  adapting  itself  to  the  wants  of  man, 
since  it  started  from  India  and  spread  over  China. 
Nor  have  men  who  have  rejected  Christianity,  and  re 
nounced  the  ancient  Paganism,  although  they  have 
shown  that  they  are  abreast  or  ahead  of  the  world  in 
other  things,  devised  a  system  of  religion  that  would 
meet  the  wants  of  man,  or  that  would  commend  itself 
to  mankind  as  worthy  to  be  perpetuated.  Mr.  Hume 
and  Mr.  Gibbon  proposed  no  new  system ;  Shaftesbury, 
Bolingbroke,  Hobbes  of  Malmesbury,  Morgan,  proposed 
none ;  the  system  of  Lord  Herbert  commended  itself 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  37 

to  but  few  minds  in  his  own  age,  and  now  commends 
itself  to  none.  The  world  has  not  shown  that  it  is 
satisfied  with  the  views  of  Hegel  and  Kant,  of  Strauss, 
of  Renan,  and  of  Comte.  But  my  present  purpose  does 
not  require  me  to  pursue  this  argument. 

It  remains  only  to  make  a  remark  on  the  other  thing 
suggested  in  regard  to  the  limitations  of  the  human 
nrind — that  limitation  as  illustrated  in  the  attempt  to 
give  to  man  a  "  book-revelation" — to  accomplish  what 
the  Bible  claims  to  accomplish.  The  inquiry  is,  what, 
in  the  failure  of  reasoning  on  the  subject,  has  man  pro 
duced  claiming  to  be  a  "  book-revelation"  from  God,  or 
to  supply  what  reason  has  not  shown  itself  able  to  sup- 

p!y- 

It  must  be  assumed  here  that  those  efforts  are  the 
result  of  the  unaided  human  intellect,  for  a  contrary 
supposition,  or  an  admission  that  they  are  inspired, 
would  not,  of  course,  bear  on  my  argument.  For  the 
sake  of  argument,  at  least,  it  may  be  admitted  that  they 
are  the  result  of  unaided  human  genius.  The  question 
is,  whether  they  meet  the  wants  of  man ;  whether  they 
supply  what  Grecian  wisdom  could  not  supply ;  wheth 
er  men  will  be  likely  to  attempt  any  thing  more  with 
any  prospect  of  success. 

The  powers  of  the  human  mind  have  exhausted  them 
selves  in  regard  to  a  "  book-revelation"  in  the  Sibylline 
oracles,  the  Zendavesta,  the  Vedas  and  Shasters,  the 
Koran,  and  the  Book  of  Mormon — chiefly  in  the  Koran. 

It  can  not  be  denied  that  in  some  of  these  there  is 
vast  power ;  it  can  not,  with  reason,  be  supp'osed  that 
in  respect  to  a  pretended  revelation  these  are  to  be  sur 
passed,  or  that  these  pretended  revelations  are  to  be  su 
perseded,  by  those  of  human  origin  that  will  better  meet 
the  wants,  or  that  will  have  higher  claims  to  the  faith 


38  LECTURES    ON    THE 

of  men.  Including  the  Bible  now  in  the  number  of 
books  that  claim  to  be  a  revelation  from  God,  it  may  be 
assumed  that,  if  that  is  on  the  same  level  with  respect 
to  its  origin,  the  human  powers  have  exhausted  them 
selves,  and  that  the  question  whether  man  can  devise 
what  shall  be  received  as  a  revelation  from  God  is 
closed  forever,  and  that  the  choice  of  that  which  shall 
guide  the  race  is  limited  to  these.  If  the  Bible  is  of 
divine  origin  it  determines  the  matter  that  there  is  to 
be  no  other,  for  it  claims  to  be  final  on  the  subject,  and 
man  must,  therefore,  embrace  the  Sibylline  oracles,  or 
the  Zendavesta,  or  the  Shasters,  or  the  Bible,  or  the 
Koran,  or  the  Book  of  Mormon,  or  have  no  revela 
tion. 

In  respect  to  the  question  now  before  us,  however, 
the  Bible  is  to  be  put  aside,  for  we  are  inquiring  into 
the  capacities  of  the  human  mind  on  the  subject  apart 
from  the  Bible — from  Christianity. 

The  question  for  the  infidel  is  whether  he  shall  em 
brace  one  of  the  other  books  referred  to,  or  whether  he 
shall  attempt  to  originate  one  of  a  higher  order  that 
will  more  perfectly  meet  the  wants  of  men,  or  wheth 
er  he  shall  reject  all  claims  of  pretended  revelations 
whatever. 

The  remark  which  I  am  now  making  is,  that  the  pow 
ers  of  the  human  mind  have  exhausted  themselves  in 
these  efforts,  and  that  it  is  hopeless  now  for  an  impos 
tor  to  produce  a  "  book-revelation,"  or  such  a  pretend 
ed  book,  that  shall  be  so  far  in  advance  of  the  rest  of 
the  world  as  to  meet  the  wants  of  mankind,  or  that 
shall  control  as  many  millions  of  the  human  race  as 
these  books  do  or  have  done,  or  that  shall  have  the 
prospect,  as  we  believe  the  Bible  has,  of  securing  the 
ultimate  faith  of  all  men. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  39 

Take,  for  example,  the  best  of  these  books — the  Ko 
ran.  What  prospect  is  there  now — what  possibility — 
that  man  shall  originate  a  book  claiming  to  have  divine 
authority,  that  shall  control  as  many  millions  of  the  hu 
man  race  as  that  book  has  done,  and  does  now  ?  For 
that  book  has  formed  the  faith  of  nations.  It  has  con 
trolled  armies,  and  directed  wars,  and  made  laws,  and 
laid  the  foundations  of  empires.  It  has  ruled  for  a  thou 
sand  years  some  of  the  most  acute,  profound,  energetic, 
active  portions  of  mind  that  God  has  made.  It  controls 
now  one  hundred  and  sixty  millions  of  minds.  How 
many  are  controlled  by  Lord  Herbert,  by  Bolingbroke, 
by  Kant,  by  Hegel,  by  Comte  ?  We  may  not  be  able, 
indeed,  to  read  that  book,  either  in  the  original  language 
or  in  a  translation,  but  we  can  not  but  respect  it.  The 
late  Mr.  Everett  said  that  he  had  often  attempted  to 
read  it,  but  had  been  unable  to  accomplish  it ;  and  all 
of  us  who  attempt  it,  after  a  few  pages  or  chapters,  co 
incide  with  his  remark,  and  lay  down  the  book.  But  it 
is  read,  and  read  as  the  Bible  is,  by  millions  too,  as  giv 
ing  them  law,  and  forming  their  faith,  and  we  can  not 
but  respect  it.  We  can  not  but  feel  an  interest  in  any 
book  that  has  power  to  hold  one  hundred  and  sixty 
millions  of  the  human  race  in  subjection,  and  to  mould 
the  institutions  and  laws  of  so  large  a  portion  of  man 
kind.  There  is  more  to  interest  us  in  that  fact  than 
there  was  in  the  power  of  Alexander,  who  subdued  the 
world  by  arms ;  or  in  the  power  of  the  Autocrat  of 
Russia,  who  rules  by  hereditary  right ;  or  in  the  power 
of  Napoleon,  who  held  nations  in  subjection  by  a  most 
potent  and  active  will.  For,  in  such  cases,  there  is  living 
power,  and  there  are  vast  armies,  and  there  are  frown 
ing  bulwarks,  and  there  are  the  means  of  crushing  and 
destroying  men.  But  the  dominion  of  the  Koran  is  THE 


40  LECTURED  ON   THE 

DOMINION  OF  A  BOOK — a  silent,  still,  speechless  thing 
that  has  no  will,  no  armies,  no  living  energies,  no  chain- 
shot,  no  cannon,  and  yet  it  exerts  a  power  which  the 
monarch  and  the  conqueror  never  wields.  It  lives,  too, 
when  monarchs  and  conquerors  die.  It  rules  advancing 
generations,  and  subdues  their  wills  too.  It  moulds 
their  opinions,  leads  them  to  temples  of  worship,  and 
restrains  their  passions  with  a  power  which  monarchs 
never  wielded.  It  guides  them  in  life,  and  is  the  last 
book  which  they  consult,  or  call  to  remembrance,  on 
the  bed  of  death  ;  and  I  think  it  will  not  be  denied  that 
I  am  justified  in  the  conclusion  that  the  powers  of  the 
human  mind  have  exhausted  themselves  in  that  di 
rection  ;  that  no  man — not  even  Comte — can  hope  that 
it  is  within  the  range  of  his  powers  to  originate  a  sys 
tem  that  shall  exert  an  influence  on  mankind  as  wide 
as  the  Koran,  or  that,  displacing  the  Bible,  and  the 
Koran,  and  the  Zendavesta,  and  the  Shasters,  shall  dis 
close  a  system  of  religion  that  shall  meet  the  wants  of 
all  mankind. 

I  infer  from  these  remarks  that  the  powers  of  man 
have  exhausted  themselves  in  this  direction;  that  the 
human  mind  is  limited  on  the  subject  of  religion;  that 
there  "are  boundaries  which  it  does  not  pass;  that,  if 
man  is  to  have  light  to  guide  him  to  his  Maker,  it 
must  be  found,  not  in  the  recorded  results  of  human 
thinking  hitherto ;  not  in  any  intuitions  to  which  the 
human  powers  may  rise ;  not  in  any  books  of  human 
devising  claiming  to  be  a  revelation,  but  in  a  "  book- 
revelation"  that  comes  direct  from  God — not  in  the  Sib 
ylline  oracles,  or  in  the  Zendavesta,  or  in  the  Shasters, 
or  in  the  Koran,  but  in  the  Bible. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  41 


LECTURE  II. 

HISTOEICAL    EVIDENCE    AS    AFFECTED    BY   TIME. 

HISTORICAL  criticism  is  comparatively  a  modern  sci 
ence.  For  the  introduction  and  establishment  of  this 
science  we  are  undoubtedly  mainly  indebted  to  the 
Germans,  who,  to  whatever  extent  they  may  have  car 
ried  it  into  Rationalism  in  theology,  or  skepticism  in 
the  classics,  have  unquestionably  laid  down,  among 
much  that  is  false,  the  true  principles  that  are  to  be 
applied  to  the  writings  of  the  ancients. 

Mebuhr,  in  the  Preface  to  his  History  of  Rome,  says : 
"  The  History  of  Rome  was  treated,  during  the  first  two 
centuries  after  the  revival  of  letters,  with  the  same  pros 
tration  of  the  understanding  and  judgment  to  the  writ 
ten  letter  that  had  been  handed  down,  and  the  same 
fearfulness  of  going  beyond  it,  which  prevailed  in  all 
the  other  branches  of  knowledge.  If  any  one  had  pre 
tended  to  examine  into  the  credibility  of  the  ancient 
writers,  and  the  value  of  their  testimony,  an  outcry 
would  have  been  raised  against  such  atrocious  presump 
tion.  The  object  aimed  at  was,  in  spite  of  every  thing 
like  internal  evidence,  to  combine  what  they  related. 
At  the  utmost,  one  authority  was  made  to  give  way  in 
some  particular  instance  to  another ;  and  this  was  done 
as  mildly  as  possible,  and  without  leading  to  any  far 
ther  results.  Here  and  there,  indeed,  a  man  of  an  inde 
pendent  mind,  like  Glareanus,  broke  through  this  fence ; 
but  inevitably  a  sentence  of  condemnation  was  forth 
with  pronounced  against  him.  Besides,  the  persons 


42  LECTURES    ON   THE 

who  did  so  were  not  the  most  learned ;  and  these  bold 
attempts  were  not  carried  with  consistency  throughout. 
In  this  department,  as  in  others,  men  of  splendid  abili 
ties  and  the  most  copious  learning  conformed  to  the 
narrow  spirit  of  their  age." 

Wolff  had,  indeed,  applied  a  spirit  of  unsparing  criti 
cism  to  the  writings  of  Homer ;  Bentley  had  continued 
the  application  of  these  principles ;  Glanvil,  who  has 
been  termed  by  a  modern  critic  "  the  first  English  wri 
ter  who  had  thrown  skepticism  into  a  definite  form,"* 
had  applied  these  principles  to  the  prevailing  belief  in 
his  time  in  sorcery  and  witchcraft ;  Bayle  carried  them 
to  almost  universal  skepticism ;  Niebuhr  applied  them 
to  the  Roman  History. 

Glanvil,  in  order  to  test  the  historical  evidence  in  re 
gard  to  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament,  proposed 
to  make  the  trial  on  the  belief  in  witchcraft  in  his  time, 
as  being  contemporary,  and  as  making  it  peculiarly  easy 
to  test  the  credibility  of  the  supernatural ;  "  for,"  said 
he,  "  things  remote  or  long  past  are  either  not  believed 
or  forgotten ;  whereas,  those  being  fresh  and  new,  and 
attended  with  all  the  circumstances  of  credibility,  it 
should  be  expected  that  they  would  have  most  success 
upon  the  obstinacy  of  unbelievers."! 

The  general  grounds  on  which  this  criticism  is  found 
ed  are  such  as  the  following :  That  the  witnesses  for 
ancient  facts  lived  in  a  remote  and  uncritical  age ;  that 
they  were  not,  when  they  lived,  subjected  to  a  cross- 
examination;  that  they  have  long  since  died  and  can 
not  now  be  examined ;  that  it  was  for  the  interest  and 
attractiveness  of  their  story  to  relate  the  marvelous, 
since  most  of  their  historic  productions  were  recited  in 
public,  and  none  were  allowed  to  contradict  them ;  that 
*  Biographic  Universelle.  f  Lecky,  Hist,  of  Rationalism,  i.,  133. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  43 

there  were  few  contemporary  historical  documents  with 
which  they  could  be  compared ;  that  there  was  a  love 
of  the  marvelous,  and  a  prevailing  belief  in  the  super 
natural,  which  was  to  be  gratified ;  that  time  has  ef 
fected  changes  in  the  public  mind  in  most  or  all  these 
respects ;  and  that  now,  in  a  more  critical  age,  and  on 
the  coolness  of  calm  reflection,  and  with  tests  to  separ 
ate  the  marvelous  from  the  real,  it  is  proper  to  apply  to 
all  ancient  writings  the  principles  of  criticism  suggest 
ed  by  the  present  advanced  position  of  the  world. 

Time  has  made  changes  affecting  historical  testimony. 
All  is  not  now  believed  that  has  been  believed  in  for 
mer  ages — nor  should  it  be ;  all  is  not  believed  that  is 
recorded — nor  should  it  be.  The  world  is  less  credu 
lous  than  it  once  was ;  it  is  more  disposed  to  examine 
what  is  proposed  for  belief;  it  has  advantages  which 
it  once  had  not  for  this ;  it  demands  evidence  which  it 
did  not  once  demand ;  it  applies  an  unsparing  criticism 
to  what  was  once  accredited  as  undoubted  truth.  It 
has  learned  that  many  false  records  have  come  down 
to  us  from  the  past;  that  there  have  been  errors  in 
transcribing  ancient  documents;  that  many  of  those 
documents  have  been  corrupted  by  design,  if  an  object 
was  to  be  gained  by  it — if  the  glory  of  a  nation  or  a 
hero  was  to  be  exalted,  if  the  claims  of  a  religion  were 
to  be  established,  if  the  interest  of  a  party  in  the  state, 
or  in  philosophy,  was  to  be  promoted ;  and  it  has  learn 
ed  that  many  of  the  documents  which  have  come  down 
to  us  from  ancient  times  are  forged  documents;  that 
there  have  been  myths,  legends,  and  fables  wrought  into 
history ;  that  there  have  been  fancied  records  of  dynas 
ties  and  heroes  stretching  back  an  almost  illimitable 
number  of  years ;  that  there  have  been  details  of  unreal 
battles,  of  imaginary  dynasties,  and  of  fancied  wonders ; 


44  LECTURES    ON   THE 

that  there  have  been  apocryphal  histories  and  apocry 
phal  gospels. 

Especially  there  has  been  a  change  on  the  whole  sub 
ject  of  the  supernatural.  In  the  early  ages  of  the  world 
the  relation  of  a  supernatural  event  did  nothing  to  im 
pair  the  general  credit  of  the  history,  and  the  record  of 
such  an  event  was  received  with  as  little  skepticism  as 
a  statement  in  regard  to  the  ordinary  events  of  the 
world.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  statements  of  Livy 
respecting  the  marvelous  events  attending  the  founda 
tion  of  Rome  and  its  early  history  impaired  the  gener 
al  credit  of  his  history,  or  lessened  the  public  faith  in 
his  statements  in  regard  to  things  occurring  under  the 
operation  of  natural  causes.  It  may  be  presumed,  on 
the  contrary,  that  such  statements  of  the  marvelous 
commended  his  history  to  a  stronger  credence,  as  being 
in  accordance  with  the  common  belief  respecting  the 
foundation  of  empires,  and  as  indicating  the  special  fa 
vor  of  the  gods  toward  the  nation — a  nation  started  on 
a  loftier  career,  and  under  better  auspices,  which  could 
refer  to  special  divine  interpositions  in  its  behalf;  which 
could  prove  that  even  the  gods  were  present  when  the 
foundations  of  its  walls  and  of  its  Capitol  were  laid. 

All  this  has  passed  away.  An  unsparing  criticism 
has  swept  all  those  marvels  from  the  early  history  of 
Rome,  and  in  doing  this,  it  demands  that  all  the  records 
of  marvels  in  the  early  history  of  nations  should  be  re 
garded  as  fabulous.  To  such  an  extent  has  the  princi 
ple  been  carried,  in  fact,  that  the  claim  that  "  miracles" 
or  marvels  have  occurred  in  any  period  of  the  history 
of  the  world  is  to  be  regarded  as  proof  that  the  entire 
history,  and  all  that  is  dependent  on  it,  is  false.  Renan, 
in  his  "  Life  of  Jesus"  (p.  17),  says  of  the  Gospels :  "  Let 
the  gospels  be  in  part  legendary :  that  is  evident,  since 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.     .  45 

they  are  full  of 'miracles  and  the  supernatural /"  that  is, 
the  fact  that  "  miracles"  and  the  "  supernatural"  are  re 
counted  there  is  to  be  regarded  as  undoubted  proof 
that  they  are  in  a  great  degree  "legendary" — on  the 
same  level  with  the  first  portion  of  the  history  ofLivy, 
or  with  the  early  records  of  Egypt. 

So,  again,  in  a  passage  apparently  approved  by  the 
Westminster  Review*  as  a  just  principle,  he  says,  "  It 
ia  an  absolute  rule  of  criticism  not  to  admit  into  history 
any  narrative  of  miraculous  incidents.  This  is  not  the 
result  of  any  metaphysical  system;  it  is  simply  a  fact 
of  observation.  No  such  facts  have  ever  been  establish 
ed,  and  all  alleged  miracles  resolve  themselves  into  illu 
sion  and  imposture.  All  miracles  that  may  be  made 
the  subject  of  examination  vanish  away." 

The  demand  is  now — a  demand  which  this  age  is  to 
consider,  for  it  affects  every  question  about  a  revelation, 
and  is  vital  in  its  bearings  on  Christianity — that  this 
shall  be  regarded  as  a  universal  rule  in  history ;  or,  that 
the  claim  that  a  miracle  has  been  wrought  shall  at  once 
set  aside  all  the  evidences  adduced  in  favor  of  the  truth 
of  any  historic  record. 

To  nothing  have  the  principles  of  a  stern  historical 
criticism  been  more  rigorously  applied  than  to  the  books 
of  the  New  Testament.  All  that  has  been  said  about 
legends,  and  marvels,  and  interpolated  manuscripts,  and 
forged  documents,  and  unknown  authorships,  has  been 
said  about  those  books.  All  that  has  been  said  about 
statements  being  contradictory  to  each  other,  or  to  in 
dependent  contemporaneous  statements ;  about  witness 
es  as  incompetent  to  give  testimony,  or  as  not  cross-ex 
amined,  or  as  long  since  dead ;  about  the  ability  of  a 
more  advanced  age  of  the  world  to  judge  of  a  record 
*  Quoted  in  the  Westminster  Review,  Oct.,  1866. 


46  LECTURES    ON   THE 

that  has  come  down  from  the  mists,  and  through  the 
mists,  of  the  past — all  this  has  been  said  of  what  is  af- 
lirmed  as  fact  in  the  New  Testament.  A  more  un 
sparing  criticism  has  been  employed  because  the  events 
referred  to  are  of  a  religious  nature ;  and  a  portion  of 
the  scientific  and  historic  world — a  portion  not  small — 
is  hastening  to  the  conclusion,  as  a  universal  canon  of 
criticism,  that  the  fact  that  any  pretended  history  re 
cords  a  "  miracle"  is  full  demonstration  that  the  histo 
ry  is  false. 

The*  question  suggested  by  these  criticisms  is  a,  fair 
question ;  a  question  which  men  have  a  right  to  ask ;  a 
question  which  the  believer  in  miracles  may  be  held  to 
answer.  The  value  of  evidence  is  affected  by  time. 
One  age  may  be  much  more  competent  to  examine  the 
credibility  of  testimony  than  another.  A  subsequent 
generation  may  be  much  better  qualified  to  examine 
such  testimony  than  that  in  which  the  event  was  said 
to  have  occurred.  It  may  be  easier  to  ascertain  the 
exact  truth  in  regard  to  an  event  at  a  subsequent  period 
than  when  it  occurred,  as  the  movements  and  positions 
of  forces  engaged  in  a  battle  can  be  best  understood 
and  explained  when  the  smoke  of  the  battle  has  cleared 
away.  Statements  apparently  contradictory  may  be 
explained  and  reconciled;  different  accounts  may  be 
sifted  and  compared,  and  the  result  of  all  credible  tes 
timony  may  be  combined  in  one.  It  is  ever  to  be  re 
membered  that  the  historic  statement  of  an  event  is  what 
it  is  reported  to  be  by  all  who  witnessed  it,  and  who  have 
made  a  record  in  regard  to  it ;  not  the,  statement  of  an 
individual  The  historic  statement  in  respect  to  the 
decline  and  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  is  what  it  is  re 
ported  to  have  been  by  the  great  multitude  of  authors 
and  writers  whom  Mr.  Gibbon  had  before  him  in  com- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  47 

posing  his  history.  His  task  was  to  select,  compare, 
reconcile,  arrange,  and  combine  into  that  one  harmoni 
ous  and  magnificent  history  which  he  has  given  to  man 
kind,  all  that  was  credible  in  that  multitude  of  writers 
as  bearing  on  the  events  of  history,  not  to  reproduce 
merely  the  statement  of  any  one  of  those  authors.  The 
Scripture  narrative  of  an  event  is  what  it  is  reported 
to  have  been  by  all  the  sacred  writers,  and  the  task  of 
an  expositor  of  the  Bible  is  to  compare,  reconcile,  ar 
range,  and  combine  these  also  into  one  harmonious 
whole.  The  real  narrative  in  regard  to  the  life  of  the 
Redeemer  is  not  what  it  is  reported  to  be  by  Matthew, 
or  Mark,  or  Luke,  or  John — it  is  the  statement  of  all  of 
them  combined. 

It  is  also  a  very  pertinent  question — a  question  which 
we  may  be  held  to  answer — in  what  manner  a  religion, 
urging  its  claims  now  on  the  ground  of  the  evidence  on 
which  Christianity  advanced  its  claims,  and  on  which 
it  undoubtedly  made  its  way  in  the  world  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago,  would  be  met  in  this  age — in  this 
nineteenth  century.  Would  it  now,  if  the  same  evi 
dences  of  its  divine  origin  were  urged,  be  received  as 
a  religion  from  God?  Would  it  make  its  way  in  the 
world  in  this  age  as  it  did  then  ?  Would  the  evidences 
of  its  miracles  be  received  in  this  scientific  and  critical 
age  as  they  were  in  that  comparatively  uncritical,  un 
scientific,  and  credulous  age — an  age  when  men  were 
disposed  to  believe  in  the  marvelous,  and  when  the  be 
lief  in  the  supernatural  interposition  of  the  gods  in  hu 
man  affairs  was  the  common  belief  of  men  ?  Was  the 
evidence  of  the  miracles  ever'  thus  subjected  to  such 
tests  as  they  would  be  now,  or  as  they  ought  to  have 
been ;  would  they  convince  men  now  as  they  did  then  ? 
If  it  be  admitted  that  the  religion  was  propagated  and 


48  LECTURES    ON   THE 

embraced  then  on  evidence  that  seemed  to  be  satisfac 
tory  to  mankind,  would  it  be  embraced,  and  could  it  be 
propagated  now,  on  the  same  evidence?  Would  not 
that  evidence  be  subjected  to  a  more  rigid  and  just 
scrutiny,  and  would  it  not,  therefore,  be  rejected  ?  If  so, 
should  it  not  be  rejected  now? 

"  Let  a  'thaumaturgist,"  says  Renan,*  "  present  him 
self  to-morrow  with  testimony  sufficiently  important  to 
merit  our  attention ;  let  him  announce  that  he  is  able, 
I  will  suppose,  to  raise  the  dead ;  what  would  be  done  ? 
A  commission  composed  of  physiologists,  physicians, 
chemists,  persons  experienced  in  historical  criticism, 
would  be  appointed.  This  commission  would  choose 
the  corpse,  make  it  certain  that  death  was  real,  desig 
nate  the  hall  in  which  the  experiment  should  be  made, 
and  regulate  the  whole  system  of  precautions  necessa 
ry  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt.  If,  under  such  condi 
tions,  the  resurrection  should  be  performed,  a  probabil 
ity  almost  equal  to  certainty  would  be  attained.  How 
ever,  as  an  experiment  ought  always  to  be  capable  of 
being  repeated,  as  one  ought  to  be  capable  of  doing 
again  what  one  has  done  once,  and  as,  in  the  matter  of 
miracles,  there  can  be  no  question  of  easy  or  difficult, 
the  thaumaturgist  would  be  invited  to  reproduce  his 
marvelous  acts  under  other  circumstances,  upon  other 
bodies,  in  another  medium.  If  the  miracle  succeeds 
each  time,  two  things  would  be  proven :  first,  that  su 
pernatural  acts  do  come  to  pass  in  the  world;  second, 
that  the  power  to  perform  them  belongs  or  is  delegated 
to  certain  persons.  But  who  does  not  see  that  no  mir 
acle  was  ever  performed  under  such  conditions;  that 
always  hitherto  the  thaumaturgist  has  chosen  the  sub 
ject  of  the  experiment,  chosen  the  means,  chosen  the 
*  Life  of  Jesus,  p.  44,  45. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHKISTIANITY.  49 

public ;  that,  moreover,  it  is,  in  most  cases,  the  people 
themselves  who,  from  the  undeniable  need  which  they 
feel  of  seeing  in  great  events  and  great  men  something 
divine,  create  the  marvelous  legends  afterward." 

It  may  be  added,  as  illustrating  this  feeling,  that  the 
world  is  beginning  to  demand  an  altogether  different 
class  of  evidences  of  Christianity  from  that  which  satis 
fied  the  generations  that  preceded  us,  and  although  the 
authors,  some  of  them  at  least,  who  satisfied  those  gene 
rations  of  the  truth  of  the  Bible,  have  scarcely  passed 
away,  yet  that  Grotius  de  Veritate,  and  Paley's  Evi 
dences,  and  Lardner's  Credibility,  and  Chalmers's  Evi 
dences  of  Christianity,  are  beginning  to  be  regarded  as 
books  pertaining  to  the  past — books  that  performed 
their  work  well  enough  in  their  own  time,  but  which 
are  soon  to  be  reckoned  with  the  obsolete  defenses  of 
Christianity  in  the  times  of  Porphyry,  Celsus,  and  Ju 
lian,  or  in  the  times  of  the  British  deists  of  the  seven 
teenth  century.  Whatever  might  have  been  the  value 
of  that  evidence,  and  that  mode  of  argumentation,  in  a 
former  age,  and  however  such  arguments  may  have  con 
vinced  the  world  in  former  times,  it  is  now  held  that 
we  are  not  at  liberty  to  demand  that  the  same  credit 
shall  be  given  to  the  arguments  in  this  age.  "  Let  the 
thaumaturgist,"  Kenan  would  say,  "  work  over  the  mir 
acle  in  our  times  in  such  a  manner  as  to  satisfy  an  age 
far  different  from  that  when  the  miracles  were  pretend 
ed  to  have  been  wrought." 

It  becomes,  therefore,  very  important  to  inquire 
whether,  on  the  alleged  facts  on  which  Christianity  was 
first  propagated,  and  which  were  regarded  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago  as  sufficient  evidence  to  prove  that 
the  religion  was  from  God,  and  under  which  the  relig 
ion  actually  spread  over  the  world,  it  may  be  commend- 

C 


50  LECTURES    ON   THE 

ed  to  mankind  now  ?  Or  has  time  so  rectified  the  judg 
ment  of  mankind  on  the  subject  of  testimony  as  to  show 
that  the  evidence  was  valueless  then,  and  should  be  re 
garded  as  valueless  now,  and  that  the  religion  was  in 
fact  propagated  under  a  delusion  ? 

This  is  a  fair  question.  This  introduces  the  subject 
of  this  Lecture.  It  will  be  illustrated  under  two  heads : 

The  general  principles  on  the  subject. 

The  application  of  those  principles  to  the  Christian 
testimony. 

The  general  subject  to  be  illustrated  is,  EVIDENCE  AS 

AFFECTED  BY  TlME. 

Evidence  as  bearing  on  things  to  be  believed — which 
is  its  proper  province — must  pertain  to  subjects  as  math 
ematical,  as  legal,  as  scientific,  as  moral,  as  historical. 

N"o  one  would  pretend  that  on  these  subjects  precise 
ly  the  same  kind  of  testimony  would  be  demanded ;  no 
one  would  maintain  that  the  evidence,  to  be  satisfactory 
to  the  mind,  must  be  precisely  the  same ;  no  one  would 
affirm  that  all  would  be  equally  affected  by  time,  or 
that  the  same  rules  are  to  be  applied  in  estimating  their 
value. 

In  mathematics,  time  makes  no  change  in  the  force 
and  value  of  the  evidence  by  which  a  proposition  is  es 
tablished.  If  it  be  granted  that  shorter  methods  may 
be  used,  or  that  new  methods  of  demonstration  may  be 
discovered,  as  the  Algebraic  process,  or  Logarithms,  or 
Fluxions,  or  the  Differential  Calculus,  yet  these  do  not 
demonstrate  that  the  former  evidence  was  false,  or  un 
reliable  as  far  as  it  went,  or  that  that  for  which  it  was 
employed  as  a  demonstration  was  false.  It  must  be — 
it  can  not  be  otherwise — that  Euclid  believed  that  in  a 
right  angled  triangle  the  square  of  the  hypothenuse  is 
equal  to  the  sum  of  the  squares  on  the  two  sides,  on  the 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  51 

same  evidence  on  which  we  believe  it,  and  the  proof  on 
which  he  relied,  as  far  as  it  was  proof,  is  as  forcible  now 
as  it  was  then.  Time  does  nothing  to  affect  that  evi 
dence.  It  neither  confirms  nor  impairs  it.  The  evi 
dence  is  to  us  precisely  what  it  was  to  the  human  mind 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  and  it  will  be  the  same  to 
the  end  of  the  world.  We  believe  it  not  because  Eu 
clid  believed  it,  or  because  there  is  evidence  that  it  was 
believed  then,  or  because  the  truth  of  the  proposition 
was  propagated  on  the  ground  of  the  evidence  then 
employed,  but  because  the  proof  to  our  minds  is  precise 
ly,  neither  more  nor  less,  what  it  was  to  the  first  mind 
on  which  the  truth  of  the  "  forty-seventh"  proposition 
dawned.  The  proof  can  not  be  added  to  or  diminish 
ed  ;  and  that  proof  will  go  down  to  the  end  of  the 
world,  whatever  changes  may  occur  in  the  laws  of  crit 
icism,  or  in  any  advances  which  may  be  made  in  the 
capability  of  judging  of  evidence.  Many  new  truths 
may  be  discovered  and  added  to  this,  but  time  does  not 
change  the  faith  of  mankind  in  this. 

In  legal  matters,  time  does  not  necessarily  or  materi 
ally  affect  evidence.  It  affects  the  manner  of  arriving 
at  it ;  the  question  as  to  what  is  legal  testimony ;  the 
determination  about  the  credibility  of  witnesses ;  the 
question  how  far  interest  in  the  case,  or  relationship  to 
the  parties,  shall  affect  their  credibility ;  the  mode  of 
examination,  in  open  court  or  in  secret ;  the  credit  due 
to  the  young,  to  those  of  feeble  mind,  or  to  those  who 
may  be  partially  insane ;  the  competency  of  witnesses 
in  general;  but  the  evidence  itself  is  not  affected  by 
time.  The  evidence  that  .Titus  killed  Gaius  in  the  time 
of  Augustus,  and  that  he  was  properly  convicted  and 
punished,  is  not  modified  by  the  lapse  of  eighteen  hund 
red  years,  and  by  all  the  changes  which  have  occurred 


52  LECTURES    ON   THE 

in  the  world  in  that  time.  If  the  evidence  then  relied 
on  established  the  fact  so  that,  under  the  laws,  Titus 
was  justly  punished,  it  establishes  it  now,  so  that  it 
ought  to  go  into  history,  and  to  be  believed  in  all  com 
ing  time ;  to  become  one  of  the  cases  of  precedents  es 
tablishing  the  principles  on  which  justice  is  to  be  ad 
ministered  in  every  future  age. 

In  scientific  matters,  the  principles  are  the  same.  Tes 
timony  or  evidence  is  not  likely  to  be  affected  in  any 
way  on  these  subjects ;  for,  in  general,  we  do  not  be 
lieve  the  facts  of  science  on  the  evidence  of  testimony. 
Although  it  is  true  that  the  mass  of  men  credit  the  facts 
of  science — in  Astronomy,  Geology,  Chemistry,  and  in 
the  kindred  sciences — so  far  as  they  come  before  them 
at  all  for  belief,  on  the  ground  of  testimony,  yet  it  is 
also  true  that  these  great  truths  and  facts  can  be  sub 
jected  to  experiment  and  observation  by  any  one  that 
chooses.  Galileo  testified  that  there  were  moons  apper 
taining  to  Jupiter.  That  he  did  so  testify  can  be  easily 
established  by  history ;  that  there  are  moons  revolving 
around  the  planet  is  a  matter,  however,  not  depending 
on  the  credibility  of  his  testimony,  or  on  the  historical 
records  of  that  time,  but  can  be  verified  by  any  one  by 
looking  through  a  telescope. 

Time  sets  aside,  indeed,  many  things  in  science  which 
were  once  assuredly  believed.  But  it  is  not  done  be 
cause  the  testimony  is  doubtful;  it  is  because  the  ob 
servations  were  not  accurately  made,  or  because  there 
were  false  theories,  or  because  better  instruments,  and 
a  more  varied  and  prolonged  observation,  have  shown 
exactly  what  the  facts  were  and  are.  But  time,  for 
example,  has  not  affected  the  evidence  in  regard  to 
the  facts  connected  with  the  celebrated  "Eclipse  of 
Thales,"  on  which  so  much  has  been  written,  and  which 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  53 

has  been  the  subject  of  so  much  discussion  among  as 
tronomers —  neither  the  fact  in  regard  to  the  effect  of 
that  eclipse  as  stated  by  Herodotus,  or  the  fact  that 
Thales  predicted  it.  Herodotus  says  (book  i.,  ch.  Ixxiv.) 
that  there  was  a  war  between  the  Lydians  and  the 
Medes,  and  that,  after  various  turns  of  fortune,  "  in  the 
sixth  year  a  conflict  took  place ;  and  on  the  battle  being 
joined,  it  happened  that  the  day  suddenly  became  night. 
And  this  change,"  says  he,  "  Thales  of  Miletus  had  pre 
dicted  to  them,  definitely  naming  the  year  in  which  the 
event  took  place.  The  Lydians  and  the  Medes,  when 
they  saw  day  turned  into  night,  ceased  from  fighting, 
and  both  sides  were  desirous  of  peace."* 

Time,  in  regard  to  this  event,  has  undoubtedly  shown 
that  the  theory  which  Thales  held  in  regard  to  astron 
omy  was  a  false  theory;  that  the  prediction  implied 
no  very  accurate  knowledge  of  the  heavens ;  that  prob 
ably  «7^his  knowledge  on  the  subject  was  derived  from 
the  observation  of  the  periodical  times  when  eclipses 
occur ;  and  that  probably  also  all  that  he  predicted  was 
the  year  when  this  eclipse  would  take  place,  not  the 
hour,  the  day,  nor  even  the  month ;  but  time  has  not 
set  aside  the  evidence  in  regard  to  the  fact.  Thus  time 
may  establish  the  truth  of  a  scientific  event,  but  not  the 
cause  of  it ;  the  fact  may  be  demonstrated  by  testimo 
ny  to  the  end  of  the  world,  but  the  testimony  does 
nothing  to  establish  the  causes  of  it.  On  this  point, 
however,  time  may  do  this :  while  the  testimony  as  to 
the  fact  is  unaffected,  it  may  do  much  to  show  what 
was,  or  was  not  the  cause  of  the  event.  Time  may  show 
that  what  was  regarded  as  miraculous  and  supernatu 
ral  when  it  happened,  took  place  in  the  ordinary  oper 
ations  of  nature,  and  the  "  dim  eclipse"  which,  at  the 
*  Whewelts  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  vol.  i.,  p.  509. 


54  LECTURES    ON   THE 

time  of  its  occurrence,  "  with  fear  of  change  perplexed 
monarchs,"  may  take  its  place  among  ordinary  events, 
to  be  explained  in  accordance  with  ordinary  and  well- 
understood  laws.  The  fact  existed  as  recorded ;  time 
has  changed  the  views  of  men  in  regard  to  the  cause, 
and  reduced  it  from  a  marvelous  to  an  ordinary  opera 
tion  of  nature.  What  armies  would  now  be  stayed  in 
battle  by  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  ?  Of  ancient  facts  now 
as  reported  to  us  in  history,  we  give  credit  to  the  facts 
as  reported ;  we  explain  them  as  we  choose.  The  facts 
we  admit.  Here  we  pause.  All  in  regard  to  the  ex 
planation  is  as  much  under  our  control  as  it  was  under 
the  control  of  those  who  have  reported  the  facts  to  us. 
In  regard  to  moral  subjects — to  philosophy — the  same 
remark  is  to  be  made.  We  receive  the  statement  that 
certain  opinions  in  morals,  in  philosophy,  in  religion 
were  held;  we  embrace  those  opinions  or  not,  as  we 
choose ;  we  explain  and  defend  them  in  our  own  way. 
It  can  not  be  denied,  as  a  matter  of  historic  verity,  that 
Plato,  in  the  Gorgias,  argues  in  favor  of  the  immortal 
ity  of  the  soul.  The  fact  that  he  at  times  seems  to  hold 
this  is  not  to  be  set  aside.  But  no  one  of  us  believes 
the  doctrine  because  he  thus  testified  to  it,  and  no  one 
believes  it  on  the  ground  of  the  proof  QY  evidence  which 
he  adduces  in  favor  of  it.  Time  holds  on  to  the  fact 
that  such  opinions  were  held ;  it  sets  aside,  it  may  be, 
all  the  arguments  on  which  the  opinion  was  held,  or 
reverses  entirely  the  faith  in  the  doctrine  itself.  That 
the  schoolmen  held  certain  opinions  we  do  not  doubt ; 
that  they  were  defended  by  great  prolixity  and  by  mar 
velous  subtilty  of  argument,  any  one  may  have  evidence 
of  who  chooses  to  look  into  the  ponderous  tomes  that 
so  calmly  now  repose  in  dust  in  the  alcoves  of  our  great 
libraries,  like  ancient  knights  incased  in  armor  in  old 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  55 

cathedrals ;  but  who  feels  bound  to  believe  their  opin 
ions;  who  feels  bound  to  make  himself  acquainted  even 
with  the  terms  of  their  logic — the  weapons  with  which 
they  dealt  their  heavy  blows  ? 

There  remains  the  question  as  to  the  bearing  of  these 
remarks  on  historic  records — the  records  of facts  per 
taining  to  ancient  times.  This  point  will  lead  to  a  mat 
ter  of  much  interest,  and  one  which  specially  pertains 
to  us,  the  question  about  the  facts  in  regard  to  the  mir 
acles  of  the  New  Testament. 

It  is  this  kind  of  evidence  which  is  mainly  affected 
by  time ;  this  which  leads  into  the  whole  region  of  his 
torical  criticism. 

The  manner  in  which  this  evidence  is  affected  by  time, 
and  the  reasons  why  there  is  occasion  for  the  modern 
science  of  historical  criticism,  will  be  made  plain  by  a 
few  remarks. 

The  following  things,  then,  are  to  be  taken  into  the 
account  in  estimating  the  value  of  ancient  historical 
testimony :  (a)  The  imperfect  observation  in  regard  to 
the  facts  that  are  recorded,  (b)  The  disposition  for  the 
marvelous  in  the  early  periods  of  history,  (c)  The  char 
acter  of  the  witnesses  for  competency,  veracity,  credi 
bility,  candor,  honesty,  freedom  from  selfish  ends,  (d) 
National  vanity ;  not  a  few  histories  being  in  fact  de 
signed  to  exalt  the  glory  of  one  nation  over  its  rivals. 
(e)  The  nature  of  the  subject;  for  on  some  subjects  men 
are  much  more  honest  and  credible  than  on  others. 
Such  are,  or  may  be,  for  example,  the  views  which  men 
have  on  the  subject  of  religion,  that  no  reliance  almost 
could  be  placed  on  their  testimony  in  regard  to  the  facts 
that  pertain  to  it.  The  narrative  would  be  certain  to 
be  colored  by  the  views  entertained  on  the  subject,  and 
the  largest  allowance  would  be  necessary  in  estimating 


56  LECTURES    ON   THE 

the  value  of  the  historical  record.  (/)  The  voluntary 
corruption  of  records  for  national,  private,  or  party  pur 
poses,  (g)  The  slow  accumulation  of  errors  in  the  pro 
cess  of  transcription  of  records — small  at  first,  and  few 
in  number,  yet  unavoidably  perpetuated  and  multi 
plied  by  time.  (A)  The  number  of  false  or  apocryphal 
histories  that  may  be  written  for  various  purposes,  as 
the  long  imaginary  histories  of  the  dynasties  of  Egypt 
and  India,  or  the  apocryphal  Gospels. 

Time  affects  all  these  things ;  and  the  work  of  histor 
ical  criticism  when  the  world  becomes  sensible  that 
these  have  accumulated,  and  that  the  true  should  be 
separated  from  the  false,  becomes  a  work  so  vast  as  to 
be  properly  dignified  with  the  name  of  science.  Noth 
ing  demands  more  learning,  patience,  acuteness,  sagac 
ity,  candor,  and  impartiality  than  such  a  work,  and  he 
who,  in  history,  contributes  any  thing  to  separate  the 
true  from  the  false,  and  to  give  the  world  a  correct  rec 
ord  of  the  past,  is  to  be  classed  among  the  benefactors 
of  mankind. 

In  looking  at  these  things,  and  contemplating  the 
uncertainties  and  the  corruptions  of  history,  it  becomes 
a  question  whether  any  facts  pertaining  to  the  past  can 
be  placed  on  the  same  level  with  those  which  are  occur 
ring  in  our  own  time,  and  which  come  under  our  own 
observation,  or  the  observation  of  our  contemporaries ; 
or  whether  all  the  alleged  facts  of  ancient  history  are 
to  be  classed  among  myths  and  legends;  or  where, ^ 
there  is  true  history,  the  region  of  legend  ends  and 
that  of  history  begins ;  and  if  legend,  myth,  and  fable 
reign  at  all  in  the  past,  what  is  the  extent  of  the  domin 
ion  ?  Does  it  terminate  with  the  legends  of  Livy  ? 
Does  it  cease  with  the  stories  of  the  interventions  of 
the  gods  in  battle,  and  in  the  foundation  of  cities  and 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  5V 

empires  ?  Or  does  it  embrace  also  the  account  of  the 
Creation  and  Fall  in  Genesis ;  the  record  of  the  deluge ; 
of  the  overthrow  of  Sodom ;  of  the  wonders  of  Egypt ; 
of  the  wandering  of  the  Hebrews  in  the  desert ;  of  the 
miracles  of  Gideon  and  Samson  —  the  records  of  the 
Gospels,  and  of  the  acts  of  the  apostles  ? 

Is  there  any  thing  that  can  be  known  of  the  past  ? 

There  is  a  limit  to  skepticism  in  regard  to  the  events 
of  the  past,  as  there  is  a  limit  to  skepticism  on  all  sub 
jects.  Valuable  in  its  place,  and  valuable  as  an  attri 
bute  of  the  human  mind,  yet  there  is  a  boundary  which 
the  Author  of  that  mind  has  fixed,  beyond  which  it  is 
not  allowed  permanently  to  pass,  and  the  world,  sooner 
or  later,  works  itself  right  on  this  subject,  as  it  does  on 
all  others. 

There  are  facts  which  historical  criticism  can  not  ef 
fect,  and  to  which  skepticism,  even  that  of  the  most  de 
structive  nature,  can  not  be  applied.  There  are  facts 
which  Mr.  Hume  and  Mr.  Gibbon  found  in  the  past,  and 
which  Niebuhr  found,  and  which  are  never  hencefor 
ward  to  be  called  in  question.  The  question  in  secular 
history  is,  what  is  their  limit  ?  The  great  question  in 
religion,  a  question  which  Strauss,  and  Renan,  and  Lep- 
sius,  and  Bishop  Colenso,  and  the  authors  of  the  "Es 
says  and  Reviews,"  and  the  writers  in  the  Westminster 
Review,  are  endeavoring  to  help  us  to  solve,  is  whether 
the  proper  limit  will  exclude  the  facts  in  the  Life  of 
Jesus,  and  the  miracles  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa 
ments  ? 

Let  us  now  inquire  for  a  moment  what  principles  are 
to  be  applied  to  the  solution  of  the  historical  question. 

The  world  has  settled  down  into  a  general  view  on 
the  subject  as  to  what  is  necessary  to  establish  faith  in 
an  Ancient  fact,  and  when  those  things  are  found,  the 
C2 


58  LECTURES    ON   THE 

• 

faith  of  the  world  is,  from  the  constitution  of  the  human 
mind,  as  firm  as  it  is  in  well-established  contempora 
neous  events — it  may  be  said  as  firm  as  when  an  event 
occurs  under  our  own  eyes ;  for  we  no  more  doubt  that 
Caesar  fell  by  the  hands  of  assassins  in  the  senate-house, 
or  that  Xerxes  crossed  the  Hellespont,  or  that  the  Per 
sians  were  defeated  at  Marathon  and  Salamis,  than  that 
Washington  fought  at  Trenton,  or  that  Lord  Cornwallis 
surrendered  at  Yorktown,  or  that  the  tide  of  rebel  in 
vasion  was  turned  back  at  Gettysburg,  or  that  the  reb 
el  General  Lee  surrendered  to  General  Grant. 

Such  things  occur  as  entering  into  history,  in  such 
cases,  as  the  following : 

(a)  When  the  witnesses  are  competent,  and  have  a 
proper   opportunity   of  observing   the   facts;  that   is, 
where  the  facts  are  the  proper  subject  of  testimony  as 
facts,  or  as  actual  occurrences,  and  not  as  matters  of 
fancy  and  opinion. 

(b)  When  the  witnesses  concur  in  the  general  state 
ment  of  the  fact,  though  they  may  vary  in  the  circum 
stances  or  details. 

(c)  When  there  is  no  motive  for  deception  or  impos 
ture.     We  do  not  see,  for  example,  that  Tacitus  had  any 
motive  for  either,  and  hence  almost  no  part  of  his  nar 
rative  has  ever  been  called  in  question. 

(d)  When  the  facts  recorded  are  strongly  against  the 
religious  faith  of  the  narrator,  or  when  he  would  wish 
that  the  facts  were  otherwise.     It  is  this  which  gives 
such  value  to  the  statement  of  Mr.  Hume  that "  England 
owes  whatever  of  civil  liberty  it  enjoys  to  the  influence 
of  the  Puritans" — a  fact  which  we  are  morally  certain 
he  would  have  wished  to  be  otherwise,  and  which  he 
would  have  kept  back  if  he  could  have  done  it  as  an 
honest  historian ;  and  this  it  is,  with  other  things,  which 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  59 

gives  so  great  value  to  the  "  History  of  the  Decline  and 
Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,"  for  many  of  the  facts  re 
corded  by  Mr.  Gibbon  were  undoubtedly  such  as  a  skep 
tic  in  religion  would  have  wished  to  have  been  other 
wise  ;  in  respect  to  many  of  those  stated,  Mr.  Gibbon 
could  not  but  see  that  the  world  would  regard  them 
as  furnishing  proof  that  the  religion  was  of  Divine  or 
igin  ;  of  many  of  those  stated,  therefore,  it  required  all 
his  great  talents  to  explain  them  on  the  supposition 
that  the  religion  was  false.  Yet  he  recorded  them, 
without  suppressing  what  was  true,  or  interpolating 
what  was  false,  or  perverting  what  had  occurred,  leav 
ing  it  to  himself  and  to  other  skeptics  to  explain  them 
as  they  could. 

(e)  When  the  facts  referred  to,  and  which  are  said  to 
have  occurred,  furnish  the  most  easy  and  natural  expla 
nation  of  the  existing  state  of  things,  or  go  into  exist 
ing  events  as  the  cause  does  into  the  effect,  and  are  in 
dispensable  to  the  solution  of  what  actually  exists  in 
the  world.  There  are,  undoubtedly,  numerous  things 
existing  in  the  world — in  the  civilization,  the  arts,  the 
laws,  the  religion — for  which  the  alleged  facts  in  history 
are  the  most  natural  explanation,  and  which  are,  in  fact, 
indispensable  to  the  explanation.  The  main  facts  which 
are  said  to  have  occurred  in  the  life  of  Mohammed  fur 
nish  the  best  explanation  of  the  opinions,  the  laws,  the 
customs,  the  religious  belief  of  a  hundred  and  sixty  mil 
lions  of  the  human  family ;  nor  can  those  opinions,  laws, 
and  customs  be  explained  except  on  the  supposition 
that  those  facts  actually  occurred. 

(/)  When  those  facts  are  commemorated,  and  the 
knowledge  of  them  is  perpetuated  by  monuments,  coins, 
medals,  games,  festivals,  processions,  and  celebrations 
from  age  to  age  ;  when,  without  the  supposition  of  those 


60  LECTURES    ON,  THE 

facts,  all  those  things  would  be  unmeaning,  or  would 
be  wholly  inexplicable.  The  annual  observance  of  the 
fourth  day  of  July  in  this  country  is  founded  on  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  can  not  be  explained 
except  on  the  belief  of  the  facts  as  history  states  them. 
The  division  of  the  lands  in  England  is  founded  on  the 
fact  that  there  was  a  "  Doomsday  Book,"  and  that  the 
lands  were  apportioned  in  accordance  with  that.  The 
establishment  of  the  Feudal  System  in  England,  the 
form  of  the  government  for  ages,  the  tenure  by  which 
land  is  held,  and  the  distinction  of  ranks,  is  founded-on 
the  fact  that  William  the  Norman  was  victorious  at  the 
battle  of  Hastings,  and  that  the  country  was  apportion 
ed  among  his  barons;  nor  can  the  laws  in  regard  to 
real  estate  in  England  for  eight  hundred  years  be  ex 
plained  except  on  that  supposition.  The  boundaries  of 
the  old  thirteen  states  of  the  Union  can  be  explained 
only  on  the  supposition,  which  history  states,  that  char 
ters  were  granted  to  the  colonies  by  the  crown,  fixing 
those  boundaries — for  there  are  no  natural  boundaries 
between  Massachusetts  and  New  Hampshire ;  between 
Connecticut  and  Massachusetts ;  between  Pennsylvania 
and  New  York ;  between  Virginia  and  North  Carolina. 
The  Tower  of  London  can  be  explained  only  by  a  belief 
in  the  great  facts  of  history  as  recorded  in  the  books. 
What  mean  those  standards  taken  in  war,  those  old 
suits  of  armor,  shields,  and  bows,  and  battle-axes,  but 
that  the  nation  once  was  as  history  represents  it  to  have 
been  ?  How  came  they  there  ?  Who  invented  them  ? 
Who  had  power  to  persuade  the  nation  that  all  these 
had  been  used  in  wars  and  conquests  ?  And  what  mean 
those  blocks,  made  as  if  for  beheading  men,  and  those 
axes,  unless  it  were  true  that  Lord  Russell,  and  Sir  Wal 
ter  Raleigh,  and  Algernon  Sidney  were  actually  behead- 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  61 

ed  ?  Who  placed  them  there  ?  Who  has  been  able  to 
persuade  the  nation  that  they  represent  bloody  reali 
ties? 

Thus  facts  come  to  us  about  which  the  world  does 
not  doubt ;  reports  of  ancient  things  which  can  not  be 
explained  except  on  the  supposition  that  the  main  facts 
as  alleged  by  history  are  true.  So  the  fossil  remains 
of  the  earth — the  coal-beds — the  extinct  remains  of  races 
swept  off  in  times  far  remote — preserved  in  enduring 
rocks,  and  laid  far  below  the  surface  of  the  earth — are, 
like  these  old  pieces  of  armor  in  the  Tower  of  London, 
memorials  of  what  the  history  of  our  world  has  been. 
The  geologist,  a  laborious  and  most  useful  historian,  is 
performing,  by  toil  and  sorrow,  what  the  conductor 
through  the  Tower  of  London  does  in  explaining  the 
history  of  the  past. 

Things,  therefore,  may  be,  and  are  made  true  in  re 
gard  to  the  past.  No  man  has  any  more  doubt  that 
Caesar  was  assassinated  than  he  has  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
was. 

It  remains  to  consider  the  application  of  these  princi 
ples  to  the  particular  subject  of  Christianity — the  ques 
tion  whether  time  has  so  affected  the  evidence  in  regard 
to  the  facts  on  which  Christianity  is  based  as  to  render 
those  facts  unworthy  of  belief. 

I  have  already  remarked  that  a  more  unsparing  criti 
cism  has  been  applied  to  the  historic  records  of  Chris 
tianity  than  to  any  other  records  pertaining  to  the  past. 
All  that  has  been  alleged  against  any  other  history  has 
been  urged  against  the  books  of  the  New  Testament ; 
all  the  charges  which  have  been  elsewhere  alleged  of 
incompetency  on  the  part  of  witnesses;  of  defective  ob 
servation;  of  personal  interest;  of  corrupted  manu 
scripts  ;  of  apocryphal  writings  ;  of  inconsistencies  and 


02  LECTURES    ON   THE 

contradictions;  of  uncertain  authorship;  of  improbabil 
ity  in  regard  to  the  events ;  of  mistakes  and  errors,  have 
been  and  are  alleged  in  regard  to  the  Evangelists. 

To  the  ordinary  difficulties  in  regard  to  ancient  rec 
ords,  there  is,  in  reference  to  the  New  Testament,  this 
additional  difficulty,  greatly  augmented  by  the  change 
in  the  views  of  the  world  on  the  subject  of  the  super 
natural  and  the  marvelous,  that  the  narrative  requires 
us  to  believe  in  miracles — not  merely  that  Jesus  lived, 
and  taught,  and  was  a  good  man,  and  founded  Chris 
tianity,  as  Strauss  and  Renan  admit,  but  that  he  cast 
out  devils ;  that  he  healed  diseases  by  a  word ;  that  he 
raised  the  dead ;  that  he  raised  himself  from  the  grave 
and  ascended  to  heaven — as  the  difficulty  of  believing 
the  record  of  Livy  in  regard  to  the  foundation  of  Rome 
would  be  greatly  augmented  if  we  were  required  to  be 
lieve  his  legends  about  Romulus  and  Remus,  or  the  mir 
acle  when  a  yawning  chasm  appeared  in  the  city  threat 
ening  its  very  existence,  and  the  closing  of  the  chasm 
by  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  gallant  Curtius  throwing  him 
self  into  it  clad  in  full  armor.  No  one  can  be  required, 
it  would  be  said,  in  this  sharp,  keen,  searching,  scientif 
ic  age,  to  believe  what  men  readily  believed  in  the  fab 
ulous  periods  of  history,  when  the  belief  in  the  super 
natural  prevailed  every  where ;  when  eclipses  were 
portents  and  prodigies ;  when,  in  ignorance  of  the  laws 
of  nature,  it  was  believed  that  the  heavenly  bodies  were 
moved  by  angels;  that  all  atmospheric  changes  were 
effected  by  angels ;  that  a  special  angel  was  assigned 
to  every  star  and  every  element ;  when  it  was  believed 
that  comets  were  precursors  of  calamity,  and  that  a 
special  comet,  ominous  of  evil,  preceded  the  death  of 
such  men  as  Caesar  or  Constantino,  or  that  such  a  comet 
appeared  before  the  invasion  of  Greece  by  Xerxes,  be- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  63 

fore  the  Peloponnesian  War,  before  the  civil  wars  of 
Caesar  and  Pompey,  before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  before 
the  invasion  of  Attila,  and  before  the  coming  of  famine 
and  pestilence.*  A  more  relentless  criticism  by  far  has 
been  applied  to  the  New  Testament  than  was  applied 
by  Wolif  to  the  Iliad,  or  by  Niebuhr  to  the  History  of 
Rome.  And  what  strange,  unhistorical  theories  are 
held  in  regard  to  the  four  Evangelists !  Those  Evan 
gelists  contain  indeed  fragments  of  truth.  There  is 
enough  of  truth  in  them  to  account  for  the  origin  of 
Christianity.  But  they  are  without  order  or  arrange 
ment.  They  are  of  uncertain  date  or  authorship.  They 
are  to  be  rearranged  and  reconstructed.  The  portions 
added  are  to  be  eliminated;  the  deficiencies  are  to  be 
made  up  by  sagacity ;  the  improbable  parts  are  to  be 
discarded;  all  that  is  miraculous  is  to  be  regarded  as 
fabulous  and  legendary.  The  system  of  Christianity  is 
a  "  myth,"  having  for  its  basis  a  very  uncertain  person 
age,  of  sufficient  reality  to  suggest  the  mythical  actions 
ascribed  to  him,  as  in  Strauss ;  or  Jesus  was  a  real  per 
sonage,  the  real  founder  of  Christianity,  a  young  man 
of  vast  originality,  of  wonderful  genius,  slowly  made 
conscious  of  his  own  powers,  wrought  up  to  enthusiasm 
unexpectedly  to  himself,  to  believe  that  he  was  to  change 
and  reform  the  world,  and  acting  on  the  borders  of  in 
sanity,  as  in  the  romance  of  Renan. 

What,  then,  is  to  be  believed  ?  What  are  the  princi 
ples,  as  matters  of  history,  which  are  to  guide  us  ? 

Christianity,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  subsequent  Lecture, 
has  a  history  as  marked  and  definite  as  any  other ;  an 
origin,  a  development,  a  progress,  an  array  of  facts  that 
belong  to  it  alone.  England  has  a  history :  its  institu 
tions;  its  judicial  arrangements;  its  trial  by  jury;  its 
*  Lecky,  History  of  Rationalism,  i.,  289,  290. 


64  LECTURES    ON   THE 

writ  of  Habeas  Corpus ;  its  government  by  King,  Lords, 
and  Cc*mmons.  Mohammedanism  has  a  history.  There 
is  that  which  is  real  which  has  gone  into  the  religion 
of  Islam ;  which  makes  it  what  it  is ;  ^that  without  the 
knowledge  of  which  its  facts  can  not  be  explained.  So 
has  Christianity. 

The  principles  which  are  to  be  applied  to  this  sub 
ject,  as  connected  with  the  train  of  thought  in  this  Lec 
ture,  must  now  be  stated  in  few  w^ords. 

(1.)  The  same  principles  of  historical  criticism  must  be 
applied  to  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  as  to  other 
books :  no  sharper,  no  more  lax ;  no  more  severe,  no 
more  indulgent.  No  favor  should  be  shown  to  them 
because  they  claim  to  be  sacred  books ;  nor  should  they 
be  approached  with  any  prejudice,  or  any  suspicion,  on 
that  account.  The  question  is  not  what  the  book  is 
about  /  it  is  whether  it  is  true.  It  i#  possible,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  that  a  book  may  record  correctly  the 
account  of  the  healing  of  a  blind  man,  or  the  raising  of 
a  man  from  the  dead ;  and,  if  such  events  have  actually 
occurred,  it  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  a  correct  record 
can  not  be  made  of  them,  for  such  a  record  is  as  possi 
ble  as  the  record  of  a  battle  or  a  record  of  travels. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  it  should  not  be  claimed  that 
such  a  record,  even  when  it  describes  the  resurrection  of 
the  Redeemer  from  the  grave,  laying  the  foundation  of 
the  hope  of  immortal  life  for  man,  is  to  be  exempt  from 
the  profane  hands  of  criticism,  or  that  a  man  is  guil 
ty  of  presumption,  profaneness,  or  blasphemy  who  ap 
proaches  such  a  record  as  he  does  the  writings  of  Livy 
or  Tacitus.  Perhaps  it  should  be  said  that  the  very 
importance  of  the  subject,  and  the  very  sacredness  of 
the  subject,  and  the  vastness  of  the  interests  at  stake, 
should  make  the  search  into  the  genuineness  and  the 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHEISTIANITY.  65 

accuracy  of  the  narrative  more  keen  and  skeptical — as 
the  claim  of  a  title  to  a  peerage  or  a  vast  estate  would 
be  examined  more  carefully  than  the  title  to  the  office 
of  a  justice  of  the  peace  or  to  a  few  acres  of  ground;  or 
as  one  would  examine  more  carefully  the  evidence  that 
a  ship  was  so  constructed  as  to  bear  him  safely  across 
the  ocean,  than  he  would  the  capability  of  a  skiff  to 
sport  with  on  a  pond. 

That  there  has  been  a  delusion  on  this  subject,  on 
both  sides,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  facts  that  the 
books  of  the  New  Testament  are  regarded  as  sacred ; 
that  they  pertain  to  religion;  that  faith  in  them  has 
been  for  ages  imbedded  in  the  hearts  of  men ;  that  the 
hopes  of  men  are  founded  on  them ;  that  the  consequen 
ces  of  finding  that  they  are  false  would  be  terrible — 
leaving  man  without  hope — darkening  the  world,  dark 
enough  at  any  rate,  by  the  gloom  of  absolute  despair — 
these  facts,  it  can  not  be  denied,  have  influenced  many 
in  regard  to  the  manner  in  which  they  should  approach 
those  books.  To  them,  too,  it  seems  to  be  an  act  of  pro- 
faneness — a  crucifying  again  of  the  Lord  of  glory — to 
approach  the  account  of  the  sufferings,  the  death,  and 
the  resurrection  of  the  Redeemer  with  the  same  rules 
with  which  we  approach  the  account  of  the  plague  in 
Athens  by  Thucydides,  and  to  apply  the  same  rules  to 
the  one  which  we  apply  to  the  others.  Despite  every 
effort  to  the  contrary,  we  can  not  but  have  a  different 
feeling,  apart  from  any  thing  in  the  spirit  and  design 
of  the  men,  toward  Strauss  and  Renan,  from  what  we 
have  toward  Wolff  and  Niebuhr;  for  we  can  hardly 
help  feeling  that  they  have  profanely,  like  Uzzah,  touch 
ed'  the  ark  of  God.  In  the  one  case,  we  feel  that  no 
great  interests  are  at  stake,  whether  the  narrative  is 
true  or  false ;  in  the  other  is  involved  all  that  is  dear 
and  sacred  to  the  souls  of  men. 


00  LECTURES    ON   THE 

Yet  the  sacrifice  must  be  made ;  the  feeling  that  this 
is  irreverence  and  profaneness  must  be  overcome.  Ev 
ery  man  has  a  right  to  approach  the  most  sacred  rec 
ords  of  the  Bible  with  the  same  severe  and  stern  rules 
of  criticism  with  which  the  love  of  truth  would  impel 
him  to  approach  any  ancient  records  whatever.  Nay, 
every  man  is  bound  to  do  it ;  for  higher  interests  than 
any  which  are  involved  in  an  inquiry  into  the  title  to  a 
peerage  or  an  estate,  or  any  involved  in  recorded  facts 
in  regard  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  empires,  are  at  stake. 
It  is  to  be  remarked,  indeed,  that  it  is  not  inconsistent 
with  historical  candor  that  a  man  should  approach  the 
records  of  the  New  Testament  with  the  hope  that  they 
may  be  found  to  be  true,  just  as  a  man  may  approach 
the  examination  of  the  evidence  that  the  title  to  his 
farm  is  good,  or  of  the  news  which  he  has  received  of 
the  safety  of  a  son  that  he  had  supposed  was  lost  at  sea, 
or  as  he  may  look  on  the  evidence  that  his  slandered 
wife  is  chaste,  with  the  hope  that  the  evidence  will  be 
found  to  be  true.  It  is  not,  it  can  not  be  wrong  in  me 
to  desire  to  find  evidence  that  there  is  a  God  and  a  Sav 
ior  ;  that  I  am  to  exist  forever ;  that  a  way  of  redemp 
tion  has  been  provided  for  sinners ;  and  that  there  is  a 
world  of  glory  and  purity  beyond  the  grave.  Nor  is 
such  a  desire  incompatible  with  cand«r  in  the  examina 
tion  of  the  evidence ;  for  the  very  greatness  of  the  hope, 
and  of  the  interests  at  stake,  should,  and"  naturally  will, 
make  the  mind  calm  and  candid. 

(2.)  The  great  facts  of  Christianity  are  indisputably 
established,  and  this  has  been  done  by  the  ordinary 
methods  of  historic  evidence.  Those  facts  have  gone 
into  history  as  all  other  ancient  facts  have  done,  and 
the  history  of  the  world  can  not  be  explained  or  under 
stood  without  admitting  their  reality.  The  condition 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  C7 

of  the  world  as  it  is  now  has  grown  out  of  those  facts, 
and  that  condition  can  no  more  be  explained  without 
the  admission  of  the  truth  of  those  facts  than  the  Con 
stitution  and  laws  of  England  can  be  explained  without 
admitting  the  truth  that  Alfred  reigned,  or  that  Wil 
liam  the  Norman  conquered  at  Hastings  and  divided 
the  kingdom  among  his  followers,  or  that  from  John 
great  concessions  were  obtained  by  his  barons  at  Run- 
nymede. 

The  facts  to  which  I  now  advert  in  regard  to  Chris 
tianity  as  established  by  evidence  are  such  as  the  fol 
lowing  :  (a)  That  it  had  an  origin  far  within  the  limits 
of  well-established  history.  It  has  not  always  been 
upon  the  earth.  There  have  been  centuries — many  cen 
turies — in  the  history  of  the  world  in  which  it  had  no 
existence,  and  when  no  germ  existed  from  which  it  could 
have  been  developed.  We  can  go  back  to  the  times 
of  which  Berosus,  Thucydides,  Livy  make  mention,  and 
we  can  be  certain  that  it  did  not  then,  either  in  germ 
or  in  development,  exist  upon  the  earth,  (b)  The  time 
when  it  appeared,  or  when  it  was  originated,  is  also  a 
matter  of  history.  The  disputed  passage  in  Josephus, 
if  that  is  genuine,  demonstrates  it.  The  undisputed 
passage  in  Tacitus  proves  it  beyond  a  question.  The 
fact  that  the  time  of  its  origin  is  not  made  a  question 
with  Celsus,  Porphyry,  or  Julian,  confirms  this.  The 
record  of  Mr.  Gibbon  puts  the  matter  beyond  all  doubt. 
It  was  a  necessity  in  his  historical  purpose  that  he  should 
trace  the  history  of  Christianity  from  its  origin,  and  he 
has  done  it.  (c)  The  main  facts  of  the  birth,  the  life, 
the  character,  and  the  death  of  the  Founder  of  Chris 
tianity  are  matters  of  history.  Strauss  does  not  deny 
the  reality  of  the  existence  of  Jesus,  though  the  things 
ascribed  to  him  are  "  mythical ;"  Renan  does  not  deny 


68  LECTURES    ON   THE 

his  existence,  or  the  main  facts  of  his  history,  though 
he  has  his  own  way  of  telling  the  story.     The  whole  of 
his  romance  is  founded  on  the  admission  of  the  main 
facts  of  his  life.    Jesus  was  an  historical  person.    There 
is  the  most  marked  distinction  between  him  and  Mars, 
and  Apollo,  and  Minerva ;  between  him  and  King  Ar 
thur,  and  Lear.     The  fact  of  his  having  lived  is  as  clear 
ly  established  as  that  of  Alexander ;  the  fact  of  his  death, 
and  the  manner  of  his  death,  as  that  of  Caesar,     (d)  The 
fact  that  Christianity  was  propagated,  or  was  spread 
through  the  world  from  small  beginnings,  is  established 
by  history.     Its   progress  from  land  to  land  can  be 
traced ;  the  steps  of  its  movement  can  be  marked  on  a 
map  from  the  time  of  its  humble  beginning  till  it  mount 
ed  the  throne  of  the  Caesars.     Nothing  is  more  definite 
and  certain  in  history  than  the  facts  about  its  origin, 
and  its   propagation  in   the  world.     Mr.  Gibbon  has 
traced  it  as  clearly  and  as  honestly  as  he  has  the  career 
of  his  favorite  Julian,  and  the  facts  have  gone  into  the 
undisputed  history  of  nations,     (e)  History  has  estab 
lished  the  fact  that  the  religion  was  propagated  on  the 
ground  of  the  belief  in  the  miracles  which  were  alleged 
to  have  been  wrought  in  attestation  of  its  truth,  and 
especially  on  the  belief  that  its  Author,  having  been  put 
to  death  on  a  cross,  rose  again  from  the  dead.     What 
ever  may  be  the  truth  in  regard  to  those  miracles,  and 
the  fact  of  that  resurrection,  no  one  can  doubt  that  these 
things  were  put  forward ;  that  the  belief  of  them  was 
made  essential  to  the  reception  of  the  system ;  and  that 
its  propagation  is  to  be  explained  on  the  ground  that 
these  things  were  believed  to  be  true ;  and  that  it  can 
not  be  explained  on  any  other  ground.     No  one,  not 
Mr.  Gibbon,  or  Renan,  or  Strauss,  has  attempted  to  ex 
plain  the  fact  of  the  propagation  of  Christianity  on  the 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHBISTIANITY.  69 

ground  that  no  claim  was  set  up  in  regard  to  the  res 
urrection  of  Jesus,  or  on  the  ground  that  the  claim  thus 
set  up  was  false.  Assuredly  the  people  of  the  Roman 
empire,  when  they  embraced  Christianity,  did  it  in  the 
belief  that  its  Author  had  been  raised  from  the  dead, 
and  the  belief  of  this  was  vital  to  the  reception  and  ex 
tension  of  the  system.  The  religion  could  not  have 
been  propagated  had  it  not  been  for  this  belief,  and  it 
is  equally  clear  that  the  account  of  this  could  not  have 
been  inserted  in  the  narrative  respecting  the  founder 
of  the  system  afterward ;  that  is,  if  it  should  be  sup 
posed  that  the  religion  had  been  propagated  without 
this  belief,  it  would  have  been  impo'ssible  to  make  this 
an  article  of  faith  afterward.  How  could  it  be  inserted 
in  the  original  records  ?  How  could  men  be  made  to 
believe  that  a  doctrine  never  adverted  to  in  the  propa 
gation  of  a  system  had  been,  in  fact,  the  main  thing  in 
commending  it  to  the  world  ?  (f)  Once  more :  These 
points  are  not  affected  materially  by  the  questions 
whether  miracles  were  wrought,  or  whether  Jesus  was 
actually  raised  from  the  dead.  The  point  which  I  am 
making  is,  that  the  religion  was  propagated  on  the  be 
lief  of  those  things,  not  on  the  ground  of  their  truth. 
How  far  the  fact  that  the  world  believed  in  the  reality 
of  the  miracles,  and  that  great  multitudes  of  all  classes 
abandoned  their  ancient  systems  of  religion,  and  em 
braced  Christianity  as  true,  on  that  belief,  proves  that 
the  miracles  were  real,  is  another  point  which  it  is  prop 
er  to  argue  with  an  infidel  in  its  proper  place.  But 
that  is  not  the  point  now  before  us. 

(3.)  In  looking  at  the  question  how  far  the  evidence 
of  ancient  facts  is  affected  by  time,  I  adverted,  under 
the  general  inquiry,  to  these  circumstances — when  the 
witnesses  are  competent,  and  have  a  proper  opportuni- 


TO  LECTURES    ON   THE 

ty  of  observing  the  facts ;  when  there  is  no  motive  for 
deception  or  imposture ;  when  the  facts  narrated  are 
against  the  religious  faith  of  the  narrator;  when  the 
facts  referred  to  furnish  the  most  easy  and  natural  ex 
planation  of  existing  things ;  stnd  when  these  facts  are 
commemorated  and  perpetuated  by  monuments,  coins, 
medals,  games,  festivals,  processions,  and  celebrations ; 
that  is,  when  they  go  into  the  very  structure  of  society, 
and  when  it  is  no  more  easy  to  detach  them  from  exist 
ing  things  than  it  was  to  detach  the  name  of  Phidias 
from  the  statue  of  Minerva  without  destroying  the 
image.  You  can  not  explain  the  history  of  the  world 
without  the  supposition  that  Caesar  was  put  to  death 
by  the  hand  of  assassins. 

It  remains  only  to  apply  this  principle,  in  few  words, 
to  Christianity. 

Suppose,  then,  it  were  not  true  that  Caesar  was  put  to 
death ;  suppose  that  the  facts  which  I  have  adverted 
to  in  regard  to  Christianity,  in  its  history,  are  false; 
what  follows?  What  is  to  be  done  then?  What  is 
the  proper  work  of  the  man  who  does  not  believe  this  ? 

On  the  principles  now  laid  down,  we  have  the  same 
confirmation  of  the  main  facts  of  the  history  of  Chris 
tianity  which  we  have  of  the  death  of  Ca3sar,  the  life  of 
Alfred,  and  the  conquest  of  England  by  William  the 
Norman,  though  on  a  wider  scale,  and  affecting  more 
deeply  the  course  of  history  and  the  condition  of  the 
world;  for,  in  the  existing  state  of  things  on  the  earth, 
for  one  such  thing  that  goes  to  establish  those  secular 
facts,  and  to  m#ke  the  supposition  of  their  reality  indis 
pensable  to  the  explanation  of  existing  things,  there  are 
ten,  at  least,  that  go  to  confirm  the  truth  of  the  main 
facts  of  the  New  Testament.  Hard  is  the  task  of  the 
skeptic  who  denies  the  reality  of  the  death  of  Caesar 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHEISTIANITX.  71 

in  the  senate-house,  or  of  the  existence  of  Alfred,  or 
of  the  conquest  of  William  the  Norman ;  harder  by 
far  the  task  of  the  skeptic  who  denies  the  realities  of 
the  life  and  death  of  Jesus.  For,  in  this  case,  he  must 
suppose  that  all  history,  secular  and  sacred,  has  been 
corrupted  and  is  unreliable;  he  must  suppose  that 
Christianity  sprang  up  without  any  adequate  cause, 
and  at  a  time  unknown ;  he  must  suppose  that  it  made 
its  way  in  the  world  on  what  was  known  to  be  false 
hood  ;  he  must  suppose  that  men  every  where  embraced 
the  system  manifestly  against  their  own  interests,  and 
with  nothing  to  satisfy  them  of  its  truth ;  he  must  leave 
unexplained  the  conduct  of  thousands  of  martyrs,  many 
of  them  of  no  mean  name  in  philosophy  and  in  social 
rank ;  he  must  explain  how  it  was  that  acute  and  sub 
tle  enemies,  like  Celsus,  Porphyry,  and  Julian,  did  not 
make  short  work  of  the  argument  by  denying  the  truth 
of  the  main  facts  of  the  Christian  history ;  he  must  ex 
plain  the  origin  of  the  numerous  monuments  in  the 
world  which  have  been  reared  on  the  supposition  of  the 
truth  of  the  great  facts  of  Christian  history — the  ancient 
temples  whose  ruins  are  scattered  every  where,  the 
tombs  and  inscriptions  in  the  Catacombs  at  Rome,  the 
sculptures  and  paintings  which  have  called  forth  the 
highest  efforts  of  genius  in  the  early  and  the  medieval 
ages,  and  the  books  that  have  been  written  on  the  sup 
position  that  the  religion  had  the  origin  ascribed  to  it 
in  the  New  Testament ;  he  must  explain  the  observance 
of  the  first  day  of  the  week  in  so  many  lands,  and  for  so 
many  ages,  in  commemoration  of  the  belief  that  Christ 
rose  from  the  dead ;  he  must  explain  the  observance  of 
the  day  which  is  supposed  to  commemorate  the  birth 
of  the  Redeemer,  as  one  would  have  to  explain  the  ob 
servance  of  the  birthday  of  Washington,  on  the  suppo- 


72  LECTURES    ON   THE 

sition  that  Washington  was  a  "  myth,"  and  the  observ 
ance  of  the  fourth  day  of  July  on  the  supposition  that 
what  has  been  regarded  as  a  history  of  the  American 
Revolution  was  a  romance ;  he  must  explain  the  ordi 
nance  kept  up  in  memory  of  his  death  for  nearly  two 
thousand  years  on  the  supposition  that  the  death  of 
Christ  never  occurred  on  the  cross  at  all ;  he  must  ex 
plain  the  honor  and  the  homage  done  to  the  cross  every 
where — as  a  standard  in  war,  as  a  symbol  of  faith,  as 
a  charm  or  an  amulet,  as  an  ornament  worn  by  beauty 
and  piety,  as  reared  on  high  to  mark  the  place  where 
God  is  worshiped,  as  an  emblem  of  self-sacrifice,  of  love, 
of  unsullied  purity — the  cross  in  itself  more  ignomini 
ous  than  the  guillotine  or  the  gibbet — for  why  should 
men  do  such  things  with  a  gibbet  if  all  is  imaginary  ? 
— and  he  must  explain  all  those  coins,  and  medals, 
and  memorials  which  crowd  palaces,  and  cabinets,  and 
churches,  and  private  dwellings,  and  which  are  found 
beneath  decayed  and  ruined  cities,  on  the  supposition 
that  all  these  are  based  on  falsehood,  and  that  in  all 
history  there  has  been  nothing  to  correspond  to  them 
or  to  suggest  them.  Can  the  fossil  remains  of  the  Old 
World,  the  ferns  in  coal-beds,  and  the  forms  of  fishes 
imbedded  in  the  rocks,  and  the  bones  of  mammoths,  and 
the  skeletons  of  the  Ichthyosaurian  and  Plesiosaurian 
races,  be  explained  on  the  supposition  that  such  vege 
tables,  and  such  land  and  marine  monsters  never  lived  ? 
Will  the  geologist  who  happens  to  be  an  infidel  in  re 
ligion  allow  us  to  urge  this  in  regard  to  those  apparent 
records  of  the  former  history  of  the  world  ?  Will  he 
then  demand  that  all  in  history,  in  monuments,  medals, 
tombs,  inscriptions,  customs,  laws,  sacred  festivals,  re 
ligious  rites,  that  seem  to  be  founded  on  the  truth  of  the 
great  facts  of  Christianity,  shall  be  explained  on  the 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  73 

supposition  that  no  such  facts  ever  occurred  ?  that  all 
this  is  myth,  and  fable,  and  delusion  ? 

Hard  would  be  the  task  of  the  infidel  if  he  were  to 
undertake  this.  It  was  too  much  for  Mr.  Gibbon,  and 
he  therefore  set  himself  to  the  work  of  showing  how, 
on  the  admission  of  these  main  facts,  the  propagation 
of  the  religion  could  be  explained  on  the  supposition 
that  it  had  not  a  divine  origin;  it  was  too  much  for 
Strauss,  and  he  therefore  set  himself  to  the  task  of  show 
ing  how,  on  the  supposition  that  Jesus  lived,  the  system 
of  Christianity  could  be  made  to  grow  around  a  few 
central  truths,  representing  in  imagined  action  the  ideas 
of  deceivers  and  impostors ;  it  was  too  much  for  Renan, 
who,  admitting  the  main  facts  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  attributing  to  the  founder  of  the  system  unequaled 
genius,  and  a  power  of  which  he  became  slowly  con 
scious,  accompanied  with  much  self-delusion,  attempted 
to  show  how  he  originated  a  system  designed  to  over 
turn  all  existing  systems,  and  a  system  that  did  accom 
plish  it.  Each  and  all  of  these  things  go  to  confirm  the 
position  which  I  have  endeavored  to  establish  in  this 
Lecture,  that  time  does  not  materially  affect  the  evi 
dence  of  the  great  facts  of  history ;  that  what  was  prop 
erly  believed  at  the  time  when  the  events  occurred  may 
be  properly  believed  now ;  that  if  the  historic  records 
were  lost,  we  could  reproduce  many  of  the  leading 
events  of  the  history  of  the  world.  In  particular,  if  the 
New  Testament  were  destroyed,  we  could  reproduce, 
from  other  sources,  the  main  facts  pertaining  to  the  life 
and  death  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity,  on  which  the 
religion  was  propagated  and  received,  and  the  great 
features  of  the  system  as  it  was  first  propounded  to  the 
world. 

How  far  the  principles  laid  down  in  this  Lecture  bear 
D 


74  LECTURES    ON   THE 

on  the  subject  of  miracles,  and  how  far  it  is  necessary 
to  assume  the  correctness  of  the  records  of  miraculous 
events  in  the  New  Testament,  to  explain  the  fact  that 
the  religion  was  propagated  in  the  .world,  and  has  been 
continued  to  the  nineteenth  century,  will  be  considered 
in  the  application  of  these  principles  in  the  subsequent 
Lectures. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  75 


LECTURE  HI. 

HISTORICAL  EVIDENCE  AS  AFFECTED   BY   SCIENCE. 

THE  subject  of  this  lecture  will  be  Historical  Evidence 
as  affected  by  Science,  particularly  the  relation  of  Sci 
ence  to  Christianity  as  affecting  the  evidence  of  its  di 
vine  origin. 

There  is  a  wide-spread  apprehension  among  many  of 
the  friends  of  Christianity  that  Science,  in  its  progress, 
may  set  aside  the  evidence  that  the  Bible  is  a  system 
of  revealed  truth,  and  that,  if  the  point  is  not  already 
reached,  it  may  soon  be,  when  they  will  be  found  to  be 
incompatible  with  each  other,  and  when  it  will  be  im 
possible  to  reconcile  them.  There  is  probably  more 
apprehension  on  this  subject  among  the  true  friends  of 
Christianity  than  they  would  like  to  avow  to  them 
selves  or  to  others,  and  there  is  more  dissatisfaction 
with  the  attempts  which  are  made  to  remove  the  diffi 
culties,  and  to  reconcile  the  two,  than  they  would  think 
it  prudent  to  admit.  There  is  many  a  skeptical  thought 
in  a  Christian's  mind  which  he  would  be  unwilling  to 
utter,  for  he  would  not  be  desirous  that  his  friends 
should  know  how  much  he  is  perplexed  on  the  subject, 
and  he  would  not  think  it  right  to  expose  the  faith  of 
others  to  the  shock  which  would  be  felt  if  they  knew 
what  was  passing  through  his  mind.  "  Oh  the  tempta 
tions,"  said  Dr.  Payson, "  which  have  harassed  me  for 
the  last  three  months !  I  have  met  with  nothing  like 
them  in  books.  I  dare  not  mention  them  to  any  mor 
tal,  lest  they  should  trouble  him  as  they  have  troubled 


76  LECTURES    ON    THE 

me ;  but  should  I  become  an  apostate,  and  write  against 
religion,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  could  bring  forward  ob 
jections  which  would  shake  the  faith  of  all  the  Chris 
tians  in  the  world.  What  I  marvel  at  is  that  the  Arch- 
deceiver  has  never  been  permitted  to  suggest  them  to 
some  of  his  scribes,  and  have  them  published."  "  My 
difficulties,"  said  he  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  "  increase 
every  year.  There  is  one  trial  which  you  can  not  know 
experimentally.  It  is  that  of  being  obliged  to  preach 
to  others  when  one  doubts  of  every  thing,  and  can 
scarcely  believe  that  there  is  a  God.  All  the  atheisti 
cal,  deistical,  and  heretical  objections  which  I  meet 
with  in  books,  are  childish  babblings  compared  with 
those  which  Satan  suggests,  and  which  he  urges  upon 
the  mind  with  a  force  which  seems  irresistible.  Yet  I 
am  often  obliged  to  write  sermons,  and  to  preach,  when 
these  objections  beat  upon  me  like  a  whirlwind,  and  al 
most  distract  me."*  Cecil  has  made  a  similar  remark : 
"  I  have  read,"  said  he,  "  all  the  most  acute  and  serious 
infidel  writers,  and  have  been  surprised  at  their  pover 
ty.  The  process  of  my  mind  has  been  such  on  the  sub 
ject  of  revelation  that  I  have  often  thought  Satan  has 
done  more  for  me  than  for  the  best  of  them ;  for  I  have 
had,  and  would  have  produced,  arguments  that  appear 
ed  to  me  far  more  weighty  than  any  I  ever  found  in 
them  against  revelation,  "f  In  this  respect,  as  in  others, 
a  good  man  is  often  in  the  situation  in  which  the  Psalm 
ist  was,  when,  in  deep  perplexity  about  the  justice  of 
the  divine  dealings,  he  said,  "  If  I  say  I  will  speak  thus, 
behold,  I  should  offend  against  the  generation  of  thy 
children." — Psa.  Ixxiii.,  15.  He  is  therefore  silent,  hop 
ing  almost  against  hope,  that  his  apprehensions  may  not 
be  well  founded,  and  yet  not  daring  to  push  the  inves- 

*  Payson's  Works,  vol.  i.,  p.  379,  380,  ed.  Portland,  1846. 
t  Works  of  Rev.  Richard  Cecil,  vol.  iii.,  p.  110. 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  77 

tigation  farther  himself.  He  is,  in  this  respect,  like  the 
mariner  who  fears  to  examine  his  ship  lest  he  should 
find  the  wood-work  of  the  bottom  eaten  through,  and 
nothing  between  him  and  the  waters  but  the  thin 
sheathing  of  copper ;  or  the  invalid  who  fears  to  have 
his  lungs  examined  from  the  apprehension  that  the  ex 
aminer  may  find  there  the  unmistakable  beginnings  of 
a  fatal  disease ;  or  the  merchant  who  fears  to  examine 
his  books  from  the  apprehension  that  he  will  find  him 
self  to  be  a  bankrupt.  The  ship,  therefore,  unexamined, 
moves  on,  the  slight  cough  is  borne  as  well  as  it  can  be, 
and  the  man  of  business  tries  to  be  calm  under  the  ap 
prehension  that,  if  the  truth  were  known,  he  would  be 
found  to  be  not  worth  a  farthing. 

There  is  a  secret  confident  feeling  on  the  part  of  not 
a  few  men  devoted  to  scientific  pursuits  that  all  this  is 
so,  and  that  these  fears  in  regard  to  Christianity  are 
well  founded.  In  not  a  few  things,  in  his  apprehension, 
the  statements  of  the  Bible  and  the  disclosures  of  Sci 
ence  have  been  demonstrated  to  be  irreconcilable,  and 
he  smiles  complacently  at  the  efforts  made  by  the 
friends  of  religion,  and  especially  by~  ministers  of  the 
Gospel,  to  harmonize  them.  He  feels  a  confident  assur 
ance  that  one  difficulty  on  the  subject  will  succeed 
another,  and  that  if  a  plausible  solution  of  one  discrep 
ancy  is  suggested,  Science  will  suggest  a  dozen  where 
the  points  will  be  irreconcilable.  He  has  that  kind  of 
carelessness,  therefore,  which  a  man  has  in  playing  a 
game  of  chess  when  he  feels  that,  though  his  adversary 
may  extricate  himself  out  of  some  small  difficulty  in  the 
move,  yet  the  general  course  of  the  game  is  certain,  and 
he  can  afford  to  be  calm ;  or  which  the  commander  of 
the  armies  of  the  Union  might  have  felt  before  Rich 
mond,  when,  though  there  might  have  been  a  tempora 
ry  reverse,  yet  the  great  plan  of  the  campaign  was  de- 


78  LECTURES    ON   THE 

veloping  itself,  and  the  final  overthrow  of  the  enemy 
was  certain.  So,  it  is  to  be  feared,  not  a  few  men  feel 
about  the  final  overthrow  of  Christianity  by  Science, 
They  do  not  exult.  They  do  not  care  to  use  the  lan 
guage  of  triumph.  They  do  not  boast  of  victory  :  they 
smile  within,  and  calmly  await  the  result. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  becomes  a  very  import 
ant  matter  to  inquire  what  tendency,  if  any,  there  is  in 
this  direction,  or  what  Science  has  done,  or  can  do,  to 
render  the  statements  in  the  Bible  incredible.  The  ex 
act  point  for  consideration  on  the  subject  may  be  easily 
understood.  There  are  many  things,  it  would  be  said, 
which  were  not  regarded  as  incredible  at  an  early  pe 
riod  of  the  world,  or  which  men  readily  received  as 
real  under  the  prevailing  forms  of  belief,  which  Science 
ultimately  shows  to  be  utterly  incredible,  and  which  it 
removes  from  the  faith  of  mankind.  By  the  same  pro 
cess  it  may  remove  all  that  is  marvelous  or  supernatu 
ral,  and  thus  ultimately  destroy  every  vestige  of  an  ar 
gument  for  the  divine  origin  of  the  religion. 

An  illustration  will  make  this  point  plain.  There  was 
nothing,  it  would  be  said,  in  the  statements  of  Livy 
about  the  prodigies  which  he  records  at  the  foundation 
of  Rome,  or  in  the  early  periods  of  the  Roman  history, 
which  was  contrary  to  the  existing  belief  at  that  time, 
which  the  prevailing  views  of  the  nature  of  evidence 
rendered  unworthy  of  belief,  or  which  was  a  departure 
from  what  was  expected  to  be,  and  what  was  under 
stood  to  be,  the  course  of  affairs  on  the  earth.  It  was 
an  age  of  the  supernatural  and  the  marvelous.  The 
world  was  prepared  to  receive  these  accounts.  There 
was  universal  faith  in  superior  beings ;  in  the  fact  that 
they  often  interposed  directly  in  the  affairs  of  men ;  that 
empires  were  founded,  that  battles  were  decided,  and 
that  the  world  was  controlled  by  these  supernatural 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  79 

agencies.  There  were  no  settled  principles  of  Science 
contrary  to  the  belief  in  prodigies,  in  sorcery,  in  divina 
tion,  in  necromancy,  in  demonology,  in  the  reappear 
ance  of  the  dead. 

Time  has  made  important  changes  in  regard  to  these 
alleged  facts.  It  has  reduced  them  to  legends  and 
myths,  and  the  historical  critic  diminishes  the  number 
of  things  to  be  believed  by  mankind  by  the  whole 
region  of  the  supernatural.  Science  has  taught  what 
may  be  regarded  as  credible  and  what  as  incredible, 
and  the  reader  of  Roman  history  no  longer  feels  him 
self  bound  to  embrace  these  early  marvels  as  a  part  of 
the  true  history  of  Rome. 

The  same  thing,  it  is  now  alleged,  has  occurred  in  re 
gard  to  the  record  of  miracles  and  marvels  in  the  Bible. 
In  the  early  history  of  the  world,  and  at  the  time,  and 
in  the  countries  where  the  books  of  the  Bible  were 
composed,  there  was  nothing  in  those  miracles  and  mar 
vels  which  was  inconsistent  with  the  prevalent  modes  of 
belief,  or  with  the  knowledge  of  the  universe  as  then  un 
derstood.  Faith  in  the  miraculous  and  the  marvelous 
was  then  the  normal  state  of  belief.  All  that  could  not 
be  explained  on  natural  principles — and  there  were  as 
yet  but  few  things  that  could  be  thus  explained — was 
supposed  to  be  the  result  of  supernatural  intervention. 
Eclipses,  comets,  meteors,  earthquakes,  the  pestilence, 
the  storm,  and  the  tempest — all  these  and  similar  things 
were  supposed  to  be  the  result  of  direct  supernatural 
interposition.  Demonology,  sorcery,  astrology,  witch 
craft,  necromancy,  furnished  all  the  explanations  which 
men  had  of  events  lying  beyond  the  range  of  ordinary 
experience,  and  the  groves,  the  waters,  the  hills,  the 
valleys  became  filled  with  supernatural  influences  and 
beings.  When  the  Bible  was  composed,  it  is  said, 
there  was  nothing  inconsistent  with  such  belief,  and 


80  EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY. 

nothing  in  its  statements  to  shock  the  general  faith  of 
mankind,  or  to  violate  any  of  the  known  laws  on  which 
the  world  is  governed.  It  was  not  then  regarded  as 
more  wonderful  than  other  things  were  supposed  to 
be,  and,  therefore,  not  incredible,  that  God  should  make 
man  from  the  dust  of  the  earth  ;  or  that  He  should  form 
a  woman  from  the  rib  of  a  man;  or  that  a  serpent 
should  speak  in  human  language  ;  or  that  an  ass  should 
use  human  speech ;  or  that  the  sun  and  moon  should 
be  made  to  stand  still  in  their  course  that  a  battle 
might  be  finished  ;  or  that  the  dead  should  appear ;  or 
that  the  earth  should  heave,  and  the  sun  be  darkened, 
when  the  Savior  died. 

But  Science  now  has  gone  far  to  establish  the  reign 
of  universal  law,  to  remove  these  marvels  from  the 
faith  of  men,  to  displace  the  belief  in  supernatural  agen 
cies,  and  to  bring  all  things  under  the  dominion  of  law ; 
and  the  question  occurs  whether  all  those  things  which 
were  once  regarded  as  marvelous  are  not  now  to  be  re 
duced  to  the  same  rank  as  the  marvels  in  Livy,  or  are 
not  to  take  their  place  on  the  same  level  as  the  ancient 
belief  in  sorcery,  astrology,  necromancy,  and  witchcraft. 
So  "Rationalism"  demands,  and  so  no  inconsiderable 
part  of  the  scientific  world  is  disposed  to  assert. 

It  requires  now  some  boldness  in  a  man  who  wishes 
to  stand  well  in  the  scientific  world  to  avow  his  belief 
in  the  events  of  this  kind  recorded  in  the  Bible.  There 
are  very  many  scientific  associations  before  which  such 
a  man  would  hesitate  in  an  attempt  to  explain  and  vin 
dicate  the  first  four  chapters  in  Genesis,  and  in  relation 
to  which  he  would  prefer  silence  to  any  distinct  utter 
ance  of  his  own  opinion ;  and  a  minister  of  the  Gospel 
in  this  age  encounters  a  difficulty  which  would  not  have 
been  felt  in  a  more  credulous  age — than  he  would  have 
done  at  a  time  when  such  events  pervaded  all  history, 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  81 

and  when  faith  in  such  events  entered  into  the  creed 
of  all  men.  Some,  in  this  state  of  things,  prefer  to  be 
silent  on  the  whole  subject;  some  wait  for  more  full 
developments ;  some  tremble  at  the  announcement  of  a 
new  discovery  in  Science  as  if  another  prop  was  to  be 
taken  from  the  faith;  some  are  willing  to  hide  the 
naked  and  ofiensive  statements  in  the  Bible  under  the 
garb  of  allegories  and  myths ;  some  are  willing  to  con 
cede  the  fact  that  there  was  ignorance  on  the  part  of 
the  sacred  writers  on  those  subjects,  and  they  endeavor 
to  calm  down  their  own  apprehensions  by  the  supposi 
tion  that  the  sacred  writers  were  not  inspired  on  those 
subjects,  and  were,  therefore,  as  liable  to  be  mistaken 
as  other  men. 

The  subject  has  become,  therefore,  a  very  important 
one  to  be  examined  in  a  consideration  of  the  argument 
on  the  Evidences  of  Christianity,  and  any  man  would 
render  a  valuable  service  to  the  Christian  world  who 
could  make  suggestions  that  would  calm  down  the 
anxieties  of  the  minds  of  good  men,  and  who  could 
show  that  Science  has  not  yet  reached  a  point  that 
need  alarm  the  friends  of  the  Bible. 

The  subject,  in  its  highest  bearings,  is  far  beyond  my 
ability,  and  were  that  not  so,  it  could  not  be  exhausted 
in  a  single  Lecture.  But  it  may  be  possible  to  suggest 
some  thoughts  on  points  on  which  the  friends  of  Science 
and  Revelation  may  have  a  common  understanding,  and 
which  may  do  something  to  repress  apprehension  on 
the  one  hand,  and  exultation  on  the  other.  I  approach 
this  subject — as  many  of  those  whom  I  address  will  in 
their  subsequent  lives  —  under  all  the  disadvantages 
produced  by  the  common  feeling  that  a  minister  of  the 
Gospel  is  little  qualified  to  grapple  with  these  diffi 
culties  ;  that  his  studies  lie  apart  from  those  which  are 
D2 


82  LECTURES    ON   THE 

pursued  in  the  schools  of  Science ;  that  in  no  one  of  the 
sciences  can  he  be  supposed  to  be  as  much  at  home  as 
he  is  in  his  own  particular  department,  or  as  a  scien 
tific  man  is  in  his  ;  and  perhaps  it  would  be  urged  with 
special  force — and  I  certainly  feel  and  admit  that  con 
sideration  fully  in  my  own  case — that  a  man  who  re 
ceived  his  education  nearly  half  a  century  ago,  and 
then  an  imperfect  one,  can  not  be  supposed,  in  the  act 
ive  pursuits  of  another  profession,  to  have  kept  pace 
with  the  advancements  of  Science  in  that  remarkable 
half  century,  or  to  be  competent  to  speak  to  those  who 
have  devoted  their  lives  to  those  pursuits.  All  this  I 
feel  and  admit ;  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  be 
that  something  has  occurred  to  such  a  man  in  his  own 
reading  and  profession,  as  bearing  on  the  subject,  which 
may  not  have  occurred  to  one  engrossed  in  another 
profession  as  he  has  been  in  his. 

I  shall,  therefore,  submit  some  remarks  to  you  de 
signed  to  illustrate  the  relation  of  Science  to  Christi 
anity  as  affecting,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  evi 
dence  of  its  truth. 

L  There  must  be  entire  harmony  between  the  proper 
deductions  of  Science  and  a  revelation  from  God.  On 
most  of  the  subjects  of  revelation,  indeed,  it  is  to  be  pre 
sumed  that  the  communications  made  would  be  such  as 
not  to  admit  of  comparison  with  what  Science  teaches, 
for  it  must  be  presumed  that,  if  a  revelation  is  given  at 
all,  it  will  be,  for  the  most  part,  on  subjects  which  lie 
beyond  the  range  of  man's  natural  powers,  and  the 
points  of  actual  contact  on  the  high  themes  of  theology 
and  the  disclosures  of  Science  must  therefore  be  few. 
In  fact,  in  a  revelation  from  God  designed  to  guide  man 
in  the  duties  of  religion  and  in  a  preparation  for  an 
other  world — which  must  be  the  main  design  of  a  rev 
elation — it  is  to  be  presumed  that  the  points  of  contact 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  83 

would  be  mostly  incidental.  Revelation  is  not  given  to 
teach  geography,  geology,  anatomy,  astronomy,  chem 
istry,  but  religion. 

Still,  it  is  right  to  assume  and  to  demand  that,  where 
there  are  any  statements  in  a  book  that  claims  to  be  a 
revelation  from  God,  on  the  subjects  of  Science,  inciden 
tal  or  otherwise,  they  must  and  will  be  in  accordance 
with  what  is  disclosed  by  an  accurate  investigation  of 
the  works  of  God.  The  friends  of  revelation  must  ad 
mit  this;  the  enemies  of  revelation  may  hold  them 
to  it. 

This  position  is  self-evident  and  indisputable  except 
on  a  supposition  which  the  friends  of  Science  will  not 
allow  us  to  make,  and  which  we  have  no  right  and  no 
desire  to  make,  that  the  Maker  of  the  world,  according 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Manichees,  was  a  different  Being 
from  the  Supreme  God.  In  such  a  case,  indeed,  under 
the  dualistic  system  of  Zoroaster  and  the  Manichees,  it 
would  be  conceivable  that  a  direct  revelation  from  the 
Supreme  Being  might  contain  principles  not  reconcila 
ble  with  the  facts  which  Science  would  exhibit  as  de 
rived  from  the  actual  creation.  There  is,  indeed,  an 
other  supposition  which  may  be  adverted  to,  where  the 
same  result  would  follow — that  there  is  something  in 
God  which  is  not  properly  expressed  in  the  works  of 
creation,  in  the  course  of  events,  or  in  our  moral  nature, 
but  that,  when  those  higher  things  in  God  are  under 
stood,  they  will  reverse  many  of  our  conceptions  now  of 
that  which  is  right  and  that  which  is  wrong ;  of  that 
which  is  true  and  that  which  is  false ;  of  that  which  is 
to  be  loved  and  of  that  which  is  hated.  Such  an  idea 
has  been  suggested  by  one  of  no  less  authority  than 
Mansel. 

But  we  can  not  be  at  liberty  to  avail  ourselves  of 


84  LECTURES    ON   THE 

this  idea  in  extricating  ourselves  from  any  difficulty 
arising  from  the  conflict  of  revealed  religion  and  Sci 
ence,  for  right  is  right,  and  wrong  is  wrong,  every 
where,  and  we  can  not  believe  that  the  Great  Creator 
has  stamped  upon  the  intellect  and  the  conscience  of 
men  a  universal  lie,  so  creating  them  that  they  are  un 
der  a  necessity  of  believing  that  to  be  right  which  he 
knows  to  be  wrong,  and  which  he  himself  knows  they 
will  ultimately  perceive  to  be  wrong,  and,  therefore, 
we  are  shut  up  to  the  necessity  of  admitting  and  main 
taining  that  between  a  true  revelation  and  the  fair  de 
ductions  of  Science  there  must  be  harmony.  This  idea, 
moreover,  we  urge  in  all  our  endeavors  to  overthrow 
the  false  religions  of  the  heathen,  and  of  this  we  pur 
pose,  in  our  missionary  efforts,  to  make  great  use  in 
showing  that  the  books  among  them  which  claim  to 
be  a  revelation  can  not  be  from  the  true  God. 

The  enemies  of  the  Christian  religion  may  therefore 
hold  us  to  this,  and  may  insist  on  it,  that  if  the  state 
ments  in  the  Bible  are  contradictory  to  the  disclosures 
of  Science,  and  can  not  by  fair  means  be  shown  to  be  in 
harmony  with  them,  the  Bible  must  be  given  up  in  its 
pretensions  to  being  a  revelation  from  God. 

II.  A  second  principle  may  be  stated  as  indisputable, 
that  the  deductions  of  Science  are  to  be  admitted  as 
true,  wherever  they  may  lead,  or  on  whatever  they  may 
impinge. 

This  principle,  also,  is  so  clear  that  it  is  difficult  to 
make  it  more  plain  by  any  illustration.  We  are  so 
made  that  we  must  admit  this;  all  our  plans,  and  all 
our  hopes,  are  based  on  this.  All  that,  as  friends  of 
religion,  we  have  a  right  to  demand  on  the  subject  is, 
that  the  things  which  we  are  to  believe,  which  may  or 
may  not  affect  religion,  shall  be  true  deductions  of 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  85 

Science.  They  must  not  be  mere  theories ;  they  must 
not  be  conclusions  based  on  a  partial  and  imperfect  ob 
servation  of  the  facts  in  the  case ;  they  must  not  be 
views  embraced  manifestly  with  a  purpose  to  destroy 
the  credit  of  revelation;  they  must  be  points  about 
which  there  can  be  no  dispute,  and  in  reference  to 
which  there  will  be  no  presumption  that  time  and  far 
ther  observation  will  set  them  aside.  If  the  belief  of 
the  forty-seventh  proposition  of  the  first  book  of  Euclid 
will  destroy  the  faith  of  mankind  in  the  Bible,  be  it  so. 
We  can  not  help  it.  But  it  is  to  be  observed,  on  the 
other  side,  that  there  have  been  a  thousand  things  as 
sumed  to  be  scientific  truths,  and  which  were  in  con 
flict  with  the  statements  of  revelation,  which  time,  bet 
ter  instruments,  and  farther  investigation  have  shown 
to  be  false. 

It  is  to  be  admitted  and  expected  that  Science,  in  its 
progress,  will  set  aside  many  things  existing  in  the 
world  pertaining  to  common  matters,  and  it  is  not  less 
to  be  presumed  that  it  will  set  aside  many  things  that 
have  been  supposed  to  be  connected  with  religion,  and 
that  this  may  at  the  time  shock  or  shake  the  faith  of 
many  believers  in  the  Bible,  as  if  all  were  lost.  Thus  a 
good  axe  or  hoe,  made  on  scientific  principles,  sets  aside 
those  which  may  have  been  long  in  use  ;  the  printing- ' 
press  set  aside  the  apparatus  for  copying;  the  power- 
loom  sets  aside  the  hand-loom ;  the  spinning-jenny  sets 
aside  the  domestic  wheel;  the  reaping  machine  sets 
aside  the  sickle  and  the  scythe ;  the  sewing  machine 
sets  aside,  to  a  large  extent,  the  common  use  of  the 
needle. 

In  like  manner,  books  are  set  aside  as  valueless  ex 
cept  as  records  of  history.  Every  new  discovery  ren 
ders  the  old  book  of  less  value,  until  it  becomes  worth- 


86  LECTURES    ON   THE 

less.  Galen  and  Hippocrates  cease  to  be  of  value  in 
medicine  ;  Mela  and  Strabo  in  geography ;  and  Ptolemy 
in  astronomy.  Thus  old  machines,  old  books,  Indian 
relics,  and  suits  of  ancient  armor,  become  fit  occupants 
of  old  libraries  and  of  museums — the  lumber,  the  debris 
of  former  times.  The  very  fact  that  a  book  is  "  rare" 
is  prima  facie  proof  that  it  has  been  superseded  by 
something  better,  and  is  worthless ;  and  every  writer 
on  Science,  and  most  of  those  on  any  subject  in  litera 
ture,  must  lay  his  account  with  the  expectation  that  in 
that  very  department  some  man  will  make  a  brighter 
discovery,  or  write  a  better  book,  that  will  place  what 
he  has  done  among  the  things  that  the  world  will 
"  willingly  let  die."  Scientific  men  must  accept  this, 
and  must  toil  on  in  their  generation  with  the  feeling 
that  this  is  to  be  the  end  of  their  labors. 

The  same  principle  is  applicable  to  religion.  As  in 
its  own  proper  department  Science  makes  its  way  re 
gardless  of  opinions  before  held,  and  reputations  won, 
and  glory  deemed  to  be  immortal,  and  garlands  that 
were  supposed  to  be  unfading,  and  patents  secured,  and 
money  invested,  and  corporations  strong  and  powerful, 
so  Science  will  make  its  way  on  whatever  it  .may  im 
pinge,  however  it  may  affect  the  faith  of  men,  what 
ever  it  may  do  in  disrobing  priests  and  throwing  down 
altars,  and  changing  temples  of  worship  to  other  pur 
poses,  and  disturbing  established  investments,  and  what 
ever  ruins  it  may  strew  in  its  path. 

The  religious  part  of  the  world  must  make  up  its 
mind  to  accept  all  the  disclosures  of  true  Science,  how 
ever  they  may  impinge  on  its  articles  of  faith.  If  the 
facts  of  Science  are  hopelessly  irreconcilable  with  the 
statements  of  the  Bible,  but  one  result  can  follow.  The 
Bible  will  be  abandoned.  The  truths  of  Science  will 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  87 

stand.  At  first  it  will  be  abandoned  by  the  scientific 
world,  and  then  it  will  retain  what  hold  it  can  be  made 
to  retain  on  the  masses  of  men  as  the  result  of  educa 
tion,  or  tradition,  or  priestly  power,  or  the  conscious 
want  of  some  religion ;  but,  sooner  or  later,  though 
slowly,  it  will  lose  its  hold  on  mankind,  as  the  belief 
in  necromancy,  demonology,  sorcery,  witchcraft,  and 
magic,  was  at  first  embraced  by  all  men,  and  then,  as 
Science  advanced,  lost  their  hold  on  those  who  were 
capable  of  explaining  the  phenomena  of  the  world  on 
scientific  principles,  retaining  still  their  hold  on  the 
masses,  until  Science,  diffused  every  where,  removes 
all  faith  in  sorcery  and  magic  from  the  world. 

III.  In  forming  a  correct  estimate  on  this  subject, 
there  are,  however,  certain  things  to  be  taken  into  the 
account,  of  which  the  friends  of  religion  have  a  right  to 
avail  themselves,  and  to  demand  that  they  shall  be  re 
garded  as  important  elements  in  determining  the  judg 
ment  of  mankind. 

(1.)  One  of  those  things  is  the  uncertainty  of  Science, 
at  least  as  bearing  on  the  points  at  issue  between  sci 
ence  and  revelation. 

It  may  startle  some  to  hear  the  expression,  "  the  un 
certainty  of  Science."  It  may  demand  some  boldness, 
and  may  do  not  a  little  to  peril  a  man's  reputation,  to 
use  such  an  expression.  We  have  been  so  much  accus 
tomed  to  the  word  " exact"  as  connected  with  the  sci 
ences,  and  have  been  so  taught  to  believe  that  a  mathe 
matical  demonstration  must  be  absolutely  certain,  and 
have  hence  so  hastily  applied  the  same  idea  to  all  other 
demonstrations  in  Science,  that  we  have  learned  to  con 
fine  the  words  "moral"  or  "probable"  as  applied  to 
evidence,  to  other  subjects  altogether,  and  hence  it  has 
come  to  be  understood  that  an  important  distinction, 


88  LECTURES    ON   THE 

in  this  respect,  is  to  be  made  between  the  evidence  of 
a  scientific  proposition  and  that  for  a  revelation :  the 
words  "  exact"  and  "  certain"  to  be  applied  exclusively 
to  the  one ;  the  words  "  moral"  and  "  probable"  only  be 
longing  to  the  other. 

But,  on  this  subject,  it  is  important  that  such  things 
as  the  following  should  be  borne  in  mind : 

(a)  When  we  look  at  the  past  in  history,  what  is 
more  vague  and  uncertain  than  the  "  sciences"  as  they 
have  been  held  among  men  ?  What  "  science"  now  is 
the  same  that  it  was  two  thousand  years  ago  ?  What 
has  been  more  shifting,  undefined,  and  unstable  than  the 
"  sciences"  as  they  have  been  actually  held  ?  Let  any 
man  read  so  common  a  book  as  WheweWs  "  History  of 
the  Inductive  Sciences,"  and  instead  of  rising  from  the 
perusal  with  the  idea  that  Science  is  "exact,"  "cer 
tain,"  and  "  stable,"  he  will  be  much  more  likely  to  in 
stitute  a  comparison  between  it  and  the  ever-changing 
sands  on  the  shores  of  the  ocean  than  with  the  fixed 
and  everlasting  hills. 

And  again :  On  what  points,  outside  of  the  small  cir 
cle  of  the  mathematical  demonstrations,  is  Science  "  cer 
tain?"  What  is  light?  What  is  matter?  What  is  gal 
vanism  ?  What  is  gravitation  ?  What  is  attraction  ? 
What  is  heat  ?  What  is  life  ?  How  many  are  the  orig 
inal  elements  of  matter  ?  In  what  proportions  do  they 
combine,  and  by  what  power  are  they  held  in  combina 
tion?  How  many  are  the  worlds  that  roll  above  us? 
What  is  the  duration  of  our  own  globe  ?  When,  and 
how  was  it  formed  and  moulded  ?  And  what  "  exact" 
changes  has  it  undergone  ?  Is  there  any  one  of  these 
and  numberless  kindred  points  on  which  the  views  of 
scientific  men  are  settled  and  "  certain  ?"  Is  there  any 
one  on  which  there  are  not  as  many  different  and  shad- 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  89 

owy  opinions  as  there  are  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin 
ity  or  Incarnation  ?  On  the  one  subject  of  geology  so 
early  as  the  year  1806,  the  French  Institute  counted 
more  than  eighty  theories  hostile  to. Scripture  history, 
not  one  of  which  has  stood  to  the  present  day.  How 
many  such  theories  have  appeared  and  vanished  since? 
(b)  And  what  is  the  range  of  scientific  knowledge  ? 
How  soon  does  man  get  to  the  extent  of  his  faculties, 
and  what  vast  oceans  of  knowledge  lie  now  unexplored, 
as  in  the  time  of  Newton  ?  In  one  sense  the  knowledge 
of  man  is  indeed  vast,  and  all  the  epithets  which  we  can 
use  in  describing  it  are  deserved.  But  what  does  man 
know  f  He  sees  but  a  little  way  around  him,  and  be 
yond  all  is  dark.  What  does  he  know  of  the  distant 
worlds  ?  What  does  he  know  of  the  sun,  or  the  moon, 
or  the  planets,  or  the  fixed  stars,  or  the  comets  ?  What 
is  their  history  ?  What  their  compositions  ?  What  the 
character  of  their  inhabitants,  if  they  have  any  ?  What 
can  he  tell  about  the  nearest  fixed  star?  It  is  not  a 
knowledge  of  that  star  to  be  able  to  determine  its  "  par 
allax,"  or  to  be  able  to  determine  that  the  ray  of  light 
that  comes  to  our  eyes  from  that  star,  informing  us  of 
its  existence,  has  been  traveling  twenty  thousand  years 
to  give  us  the  information,  and  that  therefore  the  star 
itself  may  have  ceased  to  exist  twenty  thousand  years 
ago.  And  of  the  worlds  beyond  such  a  star  what  does 
man  know  ?  The  truth  is,  that  we  have  but  just  opened 
our  eyes  on  a  universe  that  in  its  creation  demanded  all 
the  power  and  the  wisdom  of  an  Infinite  God.  Man — 
the  wisest  man — the  man  of  farthest  grasp — the  man 
who  has  accumulated  most,  has  but  just  left  his  cradle. 
But  a  few  days  ago  he  knew  not  any  thing,  not  even 
the  name  of  father  or  mother.  He  could  neither  speak 
nor  stand.  He  knew  not  that  a  candle  would  burn  his 


90  LECTURES    ON   THE 

finger  if  he  put  it  there.  By  slow  degrees  he  learned 
to  creep,  and  then  to  walk.  He  began  to  utter  sounds 
which  were  kindly  construed  into  language.  He  lisp 
ed,  and  hesitated,  and  then  achieved  a  great  victory  by 
being  able  to  utter  a  few  simple  monosyllables.  And 
then  how  soon  he  thinks  that  he  knows  all  about  the 
universe  so  vast,  and  the  God  who  made  it.  Thus  a  fine 
writer,  speaking  of  the  sum  of  Physical  Science,  says : 

"Compared  with  the  comprehensible  universe  and 
with  conceivable  time,  not  to  speak  of  infinity  and  eter 
nity,  it  is  the  observation  of  a  mere  point,  the  experi 
ence  of  an  instant.  Are  we  warranted  in  founding  any 
thing  upon  such  data,  except  that  which  we  are  obliged 
to  found  on  them,  the  daily  rules  and  processes  neces 
sary  for  the  natural  life  of  man  ?  We  call  the  discov 
eries  of  Science  sublime ;  and  truly.  But  the  sublimity 
belongs  not  to  that  which  they  reveal,  but  to  that 
which  they  suggest.  And  that  which  they  suggest  is, 
that  through  this  material  glory  and  beauty,  of  which 
we  see  a  little  and  imagine  more,  there  speaks  to  us  a 
Being  whose  nature  is  akin  to  ours,  and  who  has  made 
our  hearts  capable  of  such  converse.  Astronomy  has 
its  practical  uses,  without  which  man's  intellect  would 
hardly  rouse  itself  to  those  speculations  ;  but  its  great 
est  result  is  a  revelation  of  immensity  pervaded  by  one 
informing  mind,  and  this  revelation  is  made  by  astron 
omy  only  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  telescope  re 
veals  the  stars  to  the  eye  of  the  astronomer.  Science 
finds  no  law  for  the  thoughts  which,  with  her  aid,  are 
ministered  to  man  by  the  starry  skies.  Science  can  ex 
plain  the  hues  of  sunset,  but  she  can  not  tell  from  what 
urns  of  pain  and  pleasure  its  pensiveness  is  poured. 
These  things  are  felt  by  all  men — felt  the  more  in  pro 
portion  as  the  mind  is  higher.  They  are  a  part  of 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  91 

human  nature ;  and  why  should  they  not  be  as  sound 
a  basis  for  philosophy  as  any  other  part  ?  But  if  they 
are,  the  solid  wall  of  material  law  melts  away,  and 
through  the  whole  order  of  the  material  world  pours 
the  influence,  the  personal  influence,  of  a  spirit  corre 
sponding  to  our  own. 

"  Again,  is  it  true  that  the  fixed  or  the  unvarying  is 
the  last  revelation  of  Science  ?  These  risings  in  the 
scale  of  created  beings,  this  gradual  evolution  of  plan 
etary  systems  from  their  centre,  do  they  bespeak  mere 
creative  force  ?  Do  they  not  rather  bespeak  something 
which,  for  want  of  an  adequate  word,  we  must  call  cre 
ative  effort,  corresponding  to  the  effort  by  which  man 
raises  himself  and  his  estate  ?  And  where  effort  can  be 
discovered,  does  not  spirit  reign  again  ? 

"  A  creature  whose  sphere  of  vision  is  a  speck,  whose 
experience  is  a  second,  sees  the  pencil  of  Raphael  mov 
ing  over  the  canvas  of  the  Transfiguration ;  it  sees  the 
pencil  moving  over  its  own  speck,  during  its  own  sec 
ond  of  existence,  in  one  particular  direction,  and  it  con 
cludes  that  the  formula  expressing  that  direction  is  the 
secret  of  the  whole."* 

(c)  Again,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  are 
subjects  of  knowledge,  and  they  may  be  most  moment 
ous  in  their  nature,  that  lie  wholly  beyond  the  range 
of  Physical  Science,  and  must  ever  lie  there.  Science 
has  its  sphere ;  beyond  that  sphere  it  has  no  instru 
ments,  no  knowledge. 

The  great  subjects  of  theology  are  of  this  character, 
and  must  ever  be.  The  anatomist  and  the  chemist  do 
not  profess  to  teach  theology ;  nor  do  they  teach  it. 
Their  investigations  throw  no  light  on  the  doctrine  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  on  the  questions  about  a 
*  Lectures  on  the  Study  of  History,  by  Goldwin  Smith,  pp.  86-88. 


92  LECTURES    ON   THE 

future  state ;  on  the  inquiry  how  a  sinner  may  be  recon 
ciled  to  God.  The  electrial  machine  throws  out  no  light 
on  those  subjects ;  the  scalpel  of  the  anatomist  does  not 
even  disclose  the  source  of  life;  the  glass  of  the  astron 
omer  does  not  penetrate  far  enough  into  the  distant 
ether  to  reveal  the  throne  of  God.  How  far,  then, 
Science  should  presume  to  speak  of  that  which  is  whol 
ly  beyond  its  range,  may  be  a  fair  question.  How  far 
it  should  sit  in  judgment  on  that  which  lies  wholly 
without  its  sphere,  is  an  equally  fair  question.  Geolo 
gy,  chemistry,  metallurgy,  have  their  sphere — wide,  no 
ble,  honorable  ;  but  the  atonement,  the  incarnation,  the 
Trinity,  the  fall  of  man,  the  work  of  redemption,  per 
tain  to  another  sphere,  not  less  wide,  noble,  honorable. 
Each  one  in  its  place.*  Each  one  to  be  honored.  Each 
one  to  contribute  any  thing,  every  thing  it  can  to  the 
other,  and  to  the  whole ;  but  each  one  to  be  confined 
to  its  proper  sphere. 

It  may  yet  be  seen  that  there  is  a  "  division  of  labor" 
in  the  departments  of  human  action  more  wide  than  is 
commonly  supposed  to  be  implied  in  that  modern  dis 
covery  of  wisdom.  Each  pin-maker  labors  in  his  own 
department,  and  the  man  who  makes  the  head  does  not 
interfere  with  him  who  cuts  the  wire,  or  him  who  sharp 
ens  the  point ;  each  gun-maker  labors  in  his  own  depart 
ment,  and  he  who  makes  the  stock  does  not  interfere 
with  him  who  makes  the  barrel,  or  the  rod,  or  the  bayo 
net,  or  the  hammer  to  the  lock.  All  work  in  harmony ; 
all  contribute  to  the  result,  for  the  work  of  one  fits  into 
the  work  of  another,  as  if  all  were  the  work  of  one  man. 

It  is  certain  that  in  Science  each  department  will 
communicate  nothing  but  that  which  pertains  to  itself; 
that  chemistry  is  not  to  be  learned  in  the  dissecting- 
*  Ne  sutor  supra  crcpidam. — Plin. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  93 

room,  of  the  anatomist,  or  music  by  the  telescope,  or 
moral  philosophy  by  the  examination  of  fossils ;  and  it 
is  equally  certain  that  none  of  those  sciences  will  com 
municate  to  man  what  he  needs  to  know  about  the  im 
mortality  of  the  soul ;  that  the  question  about  the  res 
urrection  of  the  dead  is  not  to  be  decided  by  an  exam 
ination  of  the  rocks;  that  the  blow-pipe  of  the  chemist, 
and  the  hammer  of  the  geologist,  do  not  reveal  to  a  sin 
ner  the  way  of  salvation. 

(d)  Again,  the  past  experience  of  the  world  should  be 
allowed  to  teach  men  of  science  modesty  and  caution. 
It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  there  is  no  opinion  so 
extravagant  and  wild  that  it  has  not  been  at  some  time 
embraced  by  philosophers,  by  men  of  science  ;*  and  it 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  a  very  large  part  of  the 
doctrines  held  in  science  in  past  times  have  been  found 
by  more  accurate  observation  to  be  absurd,  and  have 
been  dropped  by  the  way,  and  are  now  numbered  and 
classified  with  the  huge  monsters — themselves  not  less 
monstrous  —  the  ichthyosaurians  and  the  plethiosauri- 
ans  of  the  old  geological  periods  of  our  world's  history. 
It  is  to  be  remembered,  also,  that  the  world  has  gone 
through  a  long  experience  on  the  very  subject  now  be 
fore  us,  the  bearing  of  Science  on  revelation,  and  that 
not  one  new  discovery  has  been  made  in  Science  which 
has  not  at  the  time  been  supposed  to  impinge  on  some 
doctrine  of  revealed  religion,  and  which  has  not  caused 
momentary  alarm  to  the  friends  of  religion,  and  mo 
mentary  triumph  to  its  foes.  Yet  Christianity  has  sur 
vived  them  all.f  So  it  may  be  in  regard  to  the  sciences 
•* 

*  Nihil  tarn  absurde  potest,  quod  non  dicatur  ab  aliquo  philoso- 
pborum. — Cicero,  de  Divinatione,  ii.,  58. 

t  See  this  admirably  illustrated  in  Wiseman's  Lectures  on  Science 
and  Revealed  Religion,  ed.  Andover,  1837. 


94  LECTURES    ON   THE 

as  understood  now,  and  to  those  which  remain  to  be 
disclosed  in  the  advancing  periods  of  the  world. 

(e)  One  other  thing  may  be  adverted  to.  It  may  be 
that  the  facts  of  Science  are  not  as  well  established  as 
they  are  claimed  to  be.  Which  of  them  is,  in  fact,  set 
tled  ?  Which  of  them  is  complete  and  perfect  ?  Is 
geology  ?  It  is,  as  yet,  in  the  cradle.  Is  astronomy  ? 
How  little  of  the  universe  is  surveyed  and  known.  Is 
chemistry?  What  chemist  is  there  who  stops  where 
he  is,  and  supposes  that  his  work  is  perfect,  and  that 
nothing  remains  to  be  known?  Is  anatomy?  What 
anatomist  lays  down  his  scalpel,  and  feels  that  all  stim 
ulus  to  future  discovery  has  ended?  What  book  is 
there  on  any  of  the  subjects  of  Science  which  can  be 
safely  stereotyped  ?  What  man  is  there  who  can  feel 
assured  that  his  profoundest  speculations  of  this  year 
will  not  be  classed  next  year  with  the  almanac  which 
has  had  its  day  ?  The  young  men  of  each  generation 
are  stimulated  to  make  attainments  in  Science,  because 
there  are  vast  fields  yet  unexplored;  the  traveler  in 
unknown  lands  is  cheered  because  a  vast  and  inviting 
field  is  before  him  which  the  foot  of  man  has  never 
trod,  and  as  he  passes  on  in  his  obstructed  way  through 
fields  of  flowers  new  to  the  eye  of  man,  and  ascends 
streams  on  which  man  has  never  glided,  and  climbs  the 
mountain-top  on  which  a  human  being  has  never  before 
stood,  and  looks  abroad  on  rich  valleys  that  still  invite 
him,  he  is  animated  and  excited  by  the  fact  that  all 
this  is  unknown,  nor  would  he  thank  any  one,  not  even 
his  Maker,  to  disclose  all  this  to  his  view,  and  to  stifle 
the  ardor  derived  from  the  hope  of  future  discoveries. 
So  many  a  patient  student  of  the  heavens  each  night, 
when  most  mortal  eyes  are  locked  in  slumber,  is  look 
ing  out  from  the  watch-tower — the  "  observatory" — sur- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.         *  95 

veying  the  heavens  with  the  hope  that  some  new  star 
may  be  seen  on  which  the  eye  of  man  has  never  rested, 
that  shall  solve  some  discrepancy  of  Science,  or  whose 
discovery  may  perchance  place  his  name  by  the  side  of 
that  of  LeVerrier. 

IY.  A  very  material  inquiry  therefore  meets  us  here. 
It  is,  What  are  we  to  expect  on  this  subject  ?  What  have 
we  a  right  to  demand  in  a  book  submitting  itself  to  us 
as  a  revelation  from  God  ?  Suppose  the  scientific  man 
entertains  for  a  moment  the  idea  that  a  "  book-revela 
tion"  could  be  made,  or  that  God  would  impart  truths 
directly  by  inspiration  beyond  what  man  can  discover 
by  his  unaided  powers,  what  would  he  have  a  right  to 
demand  or  expect  ?  And  how  far  would  such  a  reason 
able  expectation  correspond  with  what  actually  occurs 
in  regard  to  the  Bible  ? 

It  is  not  difficult  to  answer  these  questions. 

(1.)  We  should  expect — we  should  feel  ourselves  au 
thorized  to  demand,  in  the  sense  that  we  could  not  re 
ceive  it  as  a  revelation  otherwise — that  the  revelation 
should  not  contradict  the  disclosures  of  Science,  as  we 
expect  that  the  disclosures  made  by  the  telescope  will 
not  contradict  those  made  by  the  naked  eye.  The 
telescope,  under  the  laws  of  vision,  simply  carries  the 
vision  farther,  and  extends  it  into  regions  .beyond  the 
natural  range  of  the  eye.  But  we  anticipate  this  in 
regard  to  its  disclosures,  that  while  it  reveals  new 
worlds,  it  will  reveal  them  as  subject  to  the  same  laws 
which  reign  within  the  scope  of  our  natural  vision,  and 
that  we  shall  not,  however  vast  may  be  the  extent  of 
our  aided  vision,  or  however  deep  we  plunge  into  the 
distant  ether,  be  conducted  into  the  empire  of  another 
God.  Such  is  the  fact.  The  distant  worlds,  however 
far  from  us,  and  however  vast,  are  subject  to  the  same 


96  LECTURES    ON   THE 

laws  of  light  and  motion  which  are  observed  on  our 
own  planet;  nor  even  when  we  have  passed  our  own 
solar  system,  and  the  nebula  to  which  it  belongs,  and 
contemplate  more  vast  and  distant  nebulae,  that  seem 
to  float  as  independent  systems  or  universes,  wholly  sep 
arated  from  ours,  do  we  come  into  the  dominion  of  an 
other  Creator  and  another  God. 

So  we  expect  of  revelation.  If  God  has  given  two 
books  to  men,  the  book  of  nature  and  the  book  of  grace, 
a  revelation  through  his  works  and  an  independent 
"  book"-revelation  by  his  word,  we  expect,  we  demand 
that  they  shall  be  reconcilable  with  each  other.  And, 
unless  this  is  done,  we  are  so  made  that  we  can  not  re 
ceive  the  latter. 

(2.)  We  should  expect  that  such  a  revelation  would 
be  confined  mainly  to  the  subject  of  religion.  It  is  true 
that  in  such  a  revelation  the  truths  of  Science  might 
have  been  disclosed  as  well  as  the  truths  of  religion,  for 
all  this  knowledge  is  in  the  mind  of  God,  and  he  might 
have  revealed  a  system  of  botany,  or  mineralogy,  or 
anatomy,  or  chemistry,  or  astronomy  that  would  have 
been  perfect.  But  there  were  reasons  which  could  easily 
be  suggested  why  it  was  not  desirable  or  wise  that  this 
should  be;  why  the  discoveries  on  these  subjects  should 
be  left  to  ,the  investigations  of  men  themselves,  and 
why  they  should  be  developed  when  the  condition  of 
the  world  would  be  such  that  society  would  be  pre 
pared  for  them,  and  when  the  world  would  appreciate 
them.  There  were  reasons  why  the  art  of  working 
metals  should  to  some  extent  be  known  in  the  time  of 
Tubal-Cain  (Gen.,  iv.,  22),  but  what  would  have  been  the 
value  of  a  revelation  of  the  use  of  the  steam-engine,  of 
the  art  of  printing,  or  of  the  magnetic  telegraph  at  that 
age  of  the  world  ?  It  was  wise  and  best  that,  when 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  97 

the  world  was  prepared  by  its  ordinary  developments 
to  be  lifted  to  a  higher  level,  men  of  extraordinary 
genius  should  be  raised  up  to  strike  out  the  new  inven 
tions  that  would  be  demanded  at  that  period  of  the 
world,  for  the  real  progress  of  the  race  would  be  better 
accomplished  in  this  way  than  by  a  direct  revelation 
from  heaven.  It  was  not  for  the  good  of  the  race,  as 
I  have  endeavored  to  show  in  a  former  Lecture,  that,  on 
subjects  which  properly  lie  within  the  range  of  the  hu 
man  faculties,  the  knowledge  which  is  needful  for  man 
should  be  communicated  by  a  direct  revelation  from 
God,  and  hence  what  we  should  anticipate  in  such  a 
revelation  would  be  that  it  would  be  mainly  confined 
to  the  subject  of  religion.  In  fact,  it  has  never  been 
made  an  objection  to  the  Bible  as  a  professed  revela 
tion  that  it  does  not  deal  with  the  subjects  of  Science, 
and  does  not  claim  to  be  an  arbiter  in  its  mooted 
questions. 

(3.)  We  should  expect  and  demand  in  a  revelation 
that  if  there  were  incidental  allusions  or  references  to 
other  subjects  than  the  main  subject  of  religion,  they 
would,  be  so  made  as  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  infor 
mation  obtained  on  those  subjects  from  other  sources, 
or  be  susceptible  of  reconciliation  with  them.  A  skep 
tic  would  have  a  right  to  demand  this ;  our  own  nature, 
as  we  are  made,  requires  it.  We  act  on  this  principle 
in  the  attempt  to  propagate  our  religion,  and  to  set 
aside  the  revelations  of  other  religions,  and  we  regard 
it  as  a  sufficient  proof  that  they  are  false  if  we  can  show 
that  they  contradict  the  statenents  of  true  Science. 

(4.)  Yet  it  could  not  be  claimed  that  there  should  be 
no  apparent  conflict  between  the  two.  We  do  not  go 
very  far  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  on  any  scientific 
subject,  on  any  question  of  history,  on  any  matter  of 

E 


98  LECTURES   ON   THE 

philosophy,  without  finding  that  there  is  an  apparent 
conflict  between  the  disclosures  made  to  us  and  the 
things  already  known  or  believed ;  and  I  need  not  say 
that  a  very  material  part  of  scientific  study  consists  in 
the  work  of  reconciling  one  Ijhing  with  another,  or  in 
showing  that  there  is  real  harmony  where  there  is  appa 
rent  discord.  How  slow  and  toilsome  has  been  the  proc 
ess  of  reconciling  the  Copernican  theory  in  regard  to  the 
movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  with  admitted  facts, 
or  of  reconciling  the  theory  with  apparent  irregulari 
ties.  And  when  has  a  new  discovery  been  made  that 
did  not  require  a  new  adjustment  ?  How  long  did  as 
tronomers  wait,  how  deeply  were  they  perplexed,  in 
regard  to  certain  irregularities  in  the  planet  Uranus, 
that  was  supposed  to  be  the  most  remote  in  the  sys 
tem,  until  Le  Verrier  and  Adams  suggested  that  there 
was  still  another,  sunk  deeper  in  the  depths  of  space, 
and  as  yet  unknown,  whose  existence,  size,  and  move 
ments  might  reconcile  and  harmonize  all  ? 

(5.)  Once  more.  On  the  subjects  pertaining  to  Sci 
ence  in  such  a  revelation,  we  should  expect  that  the 
statements  made  would  be  in  the  common  language 
used  by  men,  and  not  in  technical  scientific  terms.  The 
reasons  for  this  are  obvious.  Such  truths  could  be  made 
intelligible  only  by  such  language,  and  such  language 
is  used  by  scientific  men  themselves,  even  on  subjects 
where  they  have  the  most  accurate  definitions.  No 
greater  jargon  could  be  imagined — surpassing  in  appa 
rent  unintelligibleness  and  nonsense  what  occurred  at 
Babel — than  would  be  an  attempt  to  hold  conversation 
m  the  technical  language  of  chemistry,  of  anatomy,  or 
of  medicine,  and  there  is  no  surer  proof  of  pedantry 
than  such  an  attempt.  "  Language,"  said  Talleyrand, 
"  is  for  the  purpose  of  concealing  ideas ;"  and  a  revela- 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  99 

tion  in  scientific  language  would  accomplish  that  be 
yond  even  the  language  of  German  transcendentalists. 
What  would  be  the  language  of  the  world  if  reduced 
to  scientific  terms  ?  By  what  cumbersome  and  unin 
telligible  technicalities  would  men  describe  the  rising 
or  the  setting  of  the  sun,  or  the  operations  of  walking, 
and  seeing,  and  hearing,  and  eating,  and  cooking  ?  Who 
could  understand  any  thing  of  a  rose  if  the  technical 
language  of  botanists  only  were  used,  or  of  water,  air, 
or  earth,  if  only  the  technical  language  of  chemistry 
were  employed  ?  In  the  words  of  Kepler :  "  Astronomy 
unfolds  the  causes  of  natural  things ;  it  professedly  in 
vestigates  optical  illusions.  Astronomers  do  not  pur 
sue  this  science  with  the  design  of  uttering  language. 
We  say,  with  the  common  people,  the  planets  stand 
still  or  go  down;  the  sun  rises  and  sets.  How  much 
less  should  we  require  that  the  Scriptures  of  divine 
inspiration,  setting  aside  the  common  modes  of  speech, 
should  shape  their  words  according  to  the  model  of  the 
natural  sciences,  and,  by  employing  a  dark  and  inappro 
priate  phraseology  about  things  which  surpass  the  com 
prehension  of  those  whom  it  designs  to  instruct,  perplex 
the  simple  people  of  God,  and  thus  obstruct  its  own 
way  toward  the  attainment  of  the  far  more  exalted  ob 
ject  at  which  it  aims."* 

V.  It\  is  a  very  material  question  now,  How  far  Sci 
ence  has  affected  the  evidences  of  the  truth  of  Chris 
tianity  ;  how  far  it  has  rendered  the  proofs  of  its  divine 
origin  commonly  relied  on  uncertain  or  doubtful ;  how 
far,  if  at  all,  it  has  rendered  them  valueless  ? 

This  is  a  very  large  subject — too  large  to  be  consid 
ered  in  the  little  time  now  remaining  in  this  Lecture ; 
and  as,  in  some  form,  it  will  occur  more  than  once 
*  Quoted  in  Lee  on  Inspiration,  p,  370. 


100  LECTURES    ON   THE 

again  in  this  course,  a  few  suggestions  only  need  now 
be  made. 

The  inquiry  pertains  to  two  points :  What  Science 
has  removed  that  was  once  supposed  to  be  a  part  of 
revelation;  and  Whether  it  has  affected  that  which  is 
a  real  part  of  revelation,  and  which  properly  belongs 
to  it. 

On  the  first  of  these  points  we  now  go  hand  in  hand 
with  the  skeptic  and  the  doubter.  Science  has  done 
much,  and  perhaps  the  progress  of  civilization  more, 
in  detaching  from  religion,  and,  if  I  may  so  say,  from 
the  Bible — that  is,  from  the  Bible  as  it  was  formerly  in 
terpreted — much  that  would  now,  if  it  properly  pertain 
ed  to  the  Bible,  be  fatal  to  any  claims  to  a  divine  ori 
gin.  The  Christian  world  has  been  indeed  shocked  and 
alarmed  as  one  after  another  of  these  things  has  been 
assailed,  for  it  was  supposed  that  they  were  essential 
to  religion ;  that  they  were  incorporated  in  the  Bible, 
and  that  they  were  always  to  be  regarded  as  essential 
points  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  assault  on  these 
things  has  been  suppose'd  to  be  an  assault  made  by  in 
fidelity  ;  the  skepticism  produced  in  regard  to  them 
has  been  feared  to  be  on  the  one  hand,  and  claimed  to 
be  on  the  other,  the  triumph  of  skepticism.  But  Sci 
ence,  in  its  progress,  has  disabused  the  minds  of  men  on 
these  subjects,  and  has  thus,  in  fact,  been  a  helper,  and 
not  a  hinderer,  in  embracing  the  evidences  of  Chris 
tianity — an  auxiliary,  and  not  a  foe — for  it  has  shown 
that  in  receiving  the  Bible  men  are  not  required  to  em 
brace  what  was  once  regarded  as  essential  to  the  faith. 
The  question  which  remains  for  solution,  and  which  is 
agitated  in  this  age,  is,  How  far  this  is  to  go,  and 
whether  all  that  is  supernatural  and  miraculous  in  the 
Scriptures  is  to  be  given  up  at  the  demand  of  Science, 


EVIDENCES    OP    CHRISTIANITY.  101 

in  order  that  religion  may  commend  itself  to  the  faith 
of  mankind. 

The  history  on  this  subject  is,  in  fact,  the  history  of 
"  Rationalism,"  in  the  broadest  and  best  sense  of  that 
term.  The  subject  has  occupied  and  is  occupying  the 
attention  of  minds,  partly  among  Christians  and  partly 
among  skeptics,  which  must  be  admitted  to  be  abun 
dantly  competent  to  grapple  with  it.  Coleridge,  among 
those  that  speak  our  language,  perhaps  began  it ;  Sir 
David  Brewster  did  much  to  disabuse  the  minds  of  men 
on  the  subject,  and  to  relieve  Christianity  of  a  burden, 
in  his  "  History  of  Magic  ;"  Germany  has  made  it  prom 
inent  in  its  inquiries  ;  Dr.  Channing  and  Theodore  Par 
ker  lent  their  aid  to  it  in  their  way ;  and  Buckle  and 
Lecky,  with  different  aims,  have  traced  elaborately  the 
course  of  thought  in  the  history  of  the  world  on  the 
subject.* 

The  sum  is  this :  In  the  early  periods  of  the  world 
all  things  were  full  of  marvels  and  wonders ;  all  things 
not  understood,  and  few  things  were  supposed  to  be 
understood,  were  under  the  control  of  the  supernatural. 
An  eclipse  was  a  prodigy,  a  miracle  wrought  for  some 
special  purpose ;  the  plague  and  pestilence  were  prodi 
gies  brought  upon  men  for  special  purposes ;  the  gods 
constantly  appeared  acting  in  human  affairs ;  the  stars, 
by  a  potent  influence,  presided  over  the  birth  and  death 
of  individuals ;  the  dead  reappeared,  and  it  was  possi 
ble  to  make  a  compact  with  them  for  good  or  evil  pur 
poses  ;  the  groves,  the  hills,  the  streams,  were  full  of 
dryads,  and  nymphs,  and  fauns ;  and  the  belief  in  charms 

*  Probably  the  best  and  most  reliable  history  on  the  subject,  as  it 
is  certainly  the  best  written,  is  Lecky's  "  History  of  the  Kise  and  Influ 
ence  of  the  Spirit  of  Rationalism  in  Europe." 


102  LECTURES    ON   THE 

and  incantations,  in  sorcery  and  witchcraft,  was  uni 
versal. 

Time,  science,  and  civilization  have  scattered  most 
of  these  delusions,  and  have  reduced  to  regular  laws 
most  of  what  was  supposed  to  belong  to  the  supernat 
ural.  The  naiads,  and  fauns,  and  nymphs  have  disap 
peared  ;  the  groves  have  been  unpeopled  except  in 
poetry ;  the  belief  in  sorcery  and  witchcraft  has  been 
banished  from  the  world ;  and  the  belief  is  cherished, 
and  the  hope  entertained  by  those  who  have  been  most 
active  in  disenchanting  the  world,  that  aU  that  has  oc 
curred,  or  that  does  now  occur  in  our  world,  may  be 
traced  to  regular  and  fixed  laws,  excluding  the  super 
natural  altogether. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  what  the  tendency  of 
this  process  is,  or  what  eifect  it  is  likely  to  have  on 
large  classes  of  mind  in  regard  to  the  miraculous  and 
the  supernatural  in  the  Bible.  The  real  question  is 
whether  this  shall  extend  to  all  the  events  that  have 
occurred  in  our  world ;  whether  all  the  facts  that  have 
taken  place,  including  those  which  have  occurred  in 
connection  with  events  claimed  to  be  miraculous,  can 
be  reduced  to  regular  laws ;  and  whether  all  which  can 
not  be  so  reduced  shall  not  at  once  be  regarded  as  de 
lusion  and  imposture.  Science  and  civilization  having 
done  so  much  to  drive  sorcery,  and  magic,  and  witch 
craft,  and  astrology,  and  necromancy,  and  superstition 
from  the  world,  and  having  gone  so  far  to  establish  the 
reign  of  regular  law,  the  question  is  whether  the  tri 
umph  is  not  to  be  completed,  and  whether  any  thing  is 
to  be  left  for  direct  divine  intervention,  and  whether 
we  may  not  arrive  at  a  point,  or  have  not  already 
reached  it,  when  rfc  may  be  assumed  as  a  maxim  in 
Science  that  any  thing  claiming  to  be  miraculous  is 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHKISTIANITY.  103 

at  once  to  be  rejected.  Strauss  reached  that  conclu 
sion  :  "  We  may,"  says  he,  "  summarily  reject  all  mira 
cles,  prophecies,  narratives  of  angels  and  demons,  and 
the  like,  as  simply  impossible  and  irreconcilable  with 
the  known  and  universal  laws  which  govern  the  course 
of  events."*  The  tendency  on  this  subject  no  one  can 
doubt.  That  tendency  has  been  described  at  length  by 
one  who  can  not  be  supposed  to  have  any  wish  in  that 
direction,  but  who  has  traced,  with  the  hand  of  a  mas 
ter,  the  process  by  which  the  world  has  reached  its  pres 
ent  position  in  regard  to  the  miraculous  and  the  super 
natural.  Among  other  things  he  says :  "  Men  are  pre 
pared  to  admit  almost  any  conceivable  concurrence  of 
natural  improbabilities  rather  than  resort  to  the  hy 
pothesis  of  supernatural  interference;  and  this  spirit  is 
exhibited  not  merely  by  open  skeptics,  but  by  men  who 
are  sincere,  though  perhaps  not  very  fervent  believers 
in  their  church.  It  is  the  prevailing  characteristic  of 
that  vast  body  of  educated  persons  whose  lives  are 
chiefly  spent  in  secular  pursuits,  and  who,  while  they 
receive  with  uninquiring  faith  the  great  doctrines  of 
Catholicism,  and  duly  perform  its  leading  duties,  derive 
their  mental  tone  and  coloring  from  the  general  spirit 
of  their  age.  If  you  speak  to  them  on  the  subject  they 
will  reply  with  a  shrug  and  a  smile."  "  If  we  put  aside 
the  clergy  and  those  who  are  most  immediately  under 
their  influence,  we  find  that  this  habit  of  mind  [among 
the  Roman  Catholics]  is  the  invariable  concomitant  of 
education,  and  is  the  especial  characteristic  of  those 
persons  whose  intellectual  sympathies  are  most  ex 
tended,  and  who  therefore  represent  most  faithfully 
the  various  intellectual  influences  of  their  time."  "All 
history  shows  that  in  exact  proportion  as  nations  ad- 
*  Introduction  to  the  Life  of  Jesus. 


104  LECTURES    ON  THE 

vance  in  civilization,  the  accounts  of  miracles  taking 
place  among  them  become  rarer  and  rarer,  until  at  last 
they  entirely  cease."  These  facts  "  show  that  the  re 
pugnance  of  men  to  believe  miraculous  narratives  is  in 
direct  proportion  to  the  progress  of  civilization  and  the 
diffusion  of  knowledge."  "  The  plain  fact  is,  that  the 
progress  of  civilization  produces  invariably  a  certain 
tone  and  habit  of  thought  which  makes  men  recoil  from 
miraculous  narratives  with  an  instinctive  and  imme 
diate  repugnance,  as  though  they  were  essentially  in 
credible,  independently  of  any  definite  arguments,  and 
in  spite  of  dogmatic  teaching."  "  Generation  after 
generation,  the  province  of  the  miraculous  has  con 
tracted,  and  the  circle  of  skepticism  has  expanded.  Of 
the  two  great  divisions  of  these  events,  one  has  com 
pletely  perished.  Witchcraft,  and  diabolical  possession, 
and  diabolical  disease  have  long  since  passed  into  the 
region  of  fables.  To  disbelieve  them  was  at  first  the 
eccentricity  of  a  few  isolated  thinkers ;  it  was  then  the 
distinction  of  the  educated  classes  in  the  most  advanced 
nations ;  it  is  now  the  common  sentiment  of  all  classes 
in  all  countries  of  Europe.  The  countless  miracles  that 
were  once  associated  with  every  relic  and  with  every 
village  shrine  have  rapidly  and  silently  disappeared. 
Year  by  year  the  incredulity  became  more  manifest, 
even  where  the  theological  profession  was  unchanged. 
Their  numbers  continually  lessened  until  they  at  last 
almost  ceased,  and  any  attempt  to  revive  them  has 
been  treated  with  a  general  and  undisguised  contempt. 
The  miracles  of  the  fathers  are  passed  over  with  an  in 
credulous  scorn  or  with  a  significant  silence.  The  ra 
tionalistic  spirit  has  even  attempted  to  explain  away 
those  which  are  recorded  in  Scripture,  and  it  has  mate 
rially  altered  their  position  in  the  systems  of  theology. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHEISTIANITY.  105 

In  all  countries,  in  all  churches,  in  all  parties,  among  men 
of  every  variety  of  character  and  opinion,  we  have  found 
the  tendency  existing.  In  each  nation  its  development 
has  been  a  measure  of  intellectual  activity,  and  has 
passed  in  regular  course  through  the  different  strata  of 
society.  During  the  last  century  it  has  advanced  with 
a  vastly  accelerated  rapidity ;  the  old  lines  of  demarca 
tion  have  been  every  where  obscured,  and  the  spirit  of 
Rationalism  has  become  the  great  centre  to  which  the 
intellect  of  Europe  is  manifestly  tending.  If  we  trace 
the  progress  of  the  movement  from  its  origin  to  the 
present  day,  we  find  that  it  has  completely  altered  the 
whole  aspect  and  complexion  of  religion.  When  it  be 
gan,  Christianity  was  regarded  as  a  system  entirely  be 
yond  the  range  and  scope  of  human  reason ;  it  was  im 
pious  to  question;  it  was  impious  to  examine;. it  was 
impious  to  discriminate.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  vis 
ibly  instinct  with  the  supernatural.  Miracles  of  every 
order  and  degree  of  magnitude  were  flashing  forth  in 
cessantly  from  all  its  parts.  They  excited  no  skepti 
cism  and  no  surprise.  The  miraculous  element  pervaded 
all  literature,  explained  all  difficulties,  consecrated  all 
doctrines.  Every  unusual  phenomenon  was  immedi 
ately  referred  to  a  supernatural  agency,  not  because 
there  was  a  passion  for  the  improbable,  but  because 
such  an  explanation  seemed  far  more  simple  and  easy 
of  belief  than  the  obscure  theories  of  Science.  In  the 
present  day  Christianity  is  regarded  as  a  system  which 
courts  the  strictest  investigation,  and  which,  among 
many  other  functions,  was  designed  to  vivify  and  stim 
ulate  all  the  energies  of  man.  The  idea  of  the  mirac 
ulous,  which  a  superficial  observer  might  have  once 
deemed  its  most  prominent  characteristic,  has  been 
driven  from  almost  all  its  intrenchments,  and  now  quiv- 
E  2 


106  LECTURES   ON  THE 

ers  faintly  and  feebly  through  the  mists  of  eighteen 
hundred  years."* 

The  friends  of  Christianity  who  still  retain  their  faith 
in  the  miraculous  do  not  deny  that  Science  and  civiliza 
tion  have  done  much  to  change  the  views  of  the  world 
in  regard  to  the  marvelous,  and  that  they  have  done 
much  to  disprove  what  was  once  held  to  be  taught  in 
the  Bible.  At  the  same  time,  however,  the  progress  of 
a  more  correct  exegesis  has  shown  that  many  of  these 
things  are  not  taught  in  the  Bible,  and  thus  religion 
has  been  delivered  from  a  burden  which  in  the  present 
state  of  the  world  it  would  not  have  been  able  to  bear ; 
for  we  could  not  now  go  before  the  world  with  the 
defense  of  witchcraft  or  sorcery  as  once  held ;  or  with 
the  views  of  Turretin  in  regard  to  the  creation,  as,  in 
his  apprehension,  taught  in  the  Scriptures  ;f  or  with 
the  views  of  Cosmas,  of  the  sixth  century,  in  regard  to 
the  structure  of  the  universe.  { 

*  Lecky,  History  of  Rationalism,  vol.  i.,  p.  160,  161,  162,  194, 195. 

t  "  First,"  he  remarks,  "  the  sun  is  said  in  Scripture  to  move  in  the 
heavens,  and  to  rise  and  set.  '  The  sun  is  as  a  bridegroom  coming 
out  of  his  chambers,  and  rejoiceth  as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race.' 
'The  sun  knoweth  his  going  down.'  'The  sun  ariseth,  and  the  sun 
goeth  down.'  Secondly,  The  sun,  by  a  miracle,  stood  still  in  the 
time  of  Joshua,  and  by  a  miracle  it  went  back  in  the  time  of  Heze- 
kiah.  Thirdly,  The  earth  is  said  to  be  fixed  immovably.  'The 
earth  also  is  established,  that  it  can  not  be  moved.'  'Thou  hast  es 
tablished  the  earth,  and  it  abideth.'  '  They  continue  this  day  accord 
ing  to  thine  ordinances.'  Fourthly,  Neither  could  birds,  which  often 
fly  off  through  an  hour's  circuit,  be  able  to  return  to  their  nests. 
Fifthly,  Whatever  flies  or  is  suspended  in  the  air  ought  by  this  theory 
to  move  from  west  to  east ;  but  this  is  proved  not  to  be  true,  from 
birds,  arrows  shot  forth,  atoms  made  manifest  in  the  sun,  and  down 
floating  in  the  atmosphere." 

t  "According  to  Cosmas,  the  world  is  a  flat  parallelogram.  Its 
length,  which  should  be  measured  from  east  to  west,  is  the  double 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  107 

Sow  far  this  is  to  proceed  is  now  the  great  question 
between  the  friends  and  the  enemies  of  the  Bible — the 
one  claiming  that  the  miraculous  and  the  supernatural 
are  not  to  be  abandoned ;  the  other  that  nothing  shall 
be  received  and  believed  by  men  which  can  not  be  ex 
plained  by  established  and  unvarying  law.  Here  is  to 
be  the  battle-ground  of  this  generation,  and  perhaps  of 
the  next;  for  this  warfare  men  are  girding  on  their 
armor ;  for  this  conflict,  as  much  as  for  any  other,  the 
young  men  who  are  preparing  for  the  ministry  must  be 
prepared. 

The  great  questions  which  now  lie  open,  and  which 
are,  in  their  relations  to  Christianity  and  Science,  to  be 
examined  and  determined,  are  substantially  these :  The 
creation  of  the  world — whether  it  was,  in  fact,  created 
at  all,  as  stated  in  the  Bible,  and  in  the  order  affirmed 
in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis ;  the  antiquity  of  the 
human  race  —  whether  man  existed  upon  the  earth  at 

of  its  breadth,  which  should  be  measured  from  north  to  south.  In 
the  centre  is  the  earth  we  inhabit,  which  is  surrounded  by  the  ocean  ; 
and  this  again  is  encircled  by  another  earth,  in  which  men  lived  be 
fore  the  deluge,  and  from  which  Noah  was  transported  in  the  ark. 
To  the  north  of  the  world  is  a  high  conical  mountain,  around  which 
the  sun  and  moon  continually  revolve.  When  the  sun  is  hid  behind 
the  mountain,  it  is  night ;  when  it  is  on  one  side  of  the  mountain,  it 
is  day.  To  the  edges  of  the  outer  earth  the  sky  is  glued.  It  consists 
of  four  high  walls  rising  to  a  great  height,  and  then  meeting  in  a  vast 
concave  roof,  thus  forming  an  immense  edifice,  of  which  our  world  is 
the  floor.  This  edifice  is  divided  into  two  stories  by  the  firmament, 
which  is  placed  between  the  earth  and  the  roof  of  the  sky.  A  great 
ocean  is  inserted  in  the  side  of  the  firmament  remote  from  the  earth. 
This  is  what  is  signified  by  the  waters  that  are  above  the  firmament. 
The  space  from  these  waters  to  the  roof  of  the  sky  is  allotted  to  the 
blest ;  that  from  the  firmament  to  our  earth  to  the  angels,  in  their 
character  of  ministering  spirits." — Lecky,  History  of  Rationalism, 
vol.  i.,p.  277. 


108  LECTURES    ON   THE 

a  period  anterior  to  that  which  is  fairly  implied  in  the 
Bible ;  the  origin  of  the  race  —  whether  the  different 
types  of  men  upon  the  earth  have  a  common  origin, 
and  have  been  derived  from  a  single  pair,  as  is  affirmed 
in  the  Bible,  or  whether  men  have  sprung  up  in  differ 
ent  centres,  either  as  developed  from  inferior  orders  of 
creatures,  or  from  independent  created  "  heads"  of  the 
different  races,  the  Caucasian,  the  Mongolian,  the  Ethi 
opian,  the  American  ;  and  the  whole  question  of  mira 
cles — whether  they  are  possible ;  whether  a  miracle  can 
be  believed,  or  whether  the  laws  of  nature  are  so  fixed 
and  unchanging  that  there  never  has  been,  and  never 
can  be,  sufficient  evidence  of  the  direct  interposition  of 
the  divine  power  to  justify  the  belief  that  those  laws 
have  ever  been  set  aside. 

It  remains  now  to  be  said  that,  whatever  may  be 
hereafter,  Science  has  furnished  no  demonstrations  on 
these  points  which  should  give  the  friends  of  relig 
ion  real  cause  of  alarm.  It  has  not  yet  been  dem 
onstrated  that  the  universe  was  not  created,  and  in 
the  order  described  by  Moses;  it  has  not  yet  been 
proved  that  man  has  been  upon  the  earth  for  a  period 
longer  than  that  assigned  by  a  fair  interpretation  of 
the  Scripture  record;  it  has  not  been  shown  that  the 
races  of  men  did  not  descend  from  a  single  pair ;  and 
the  point  has  not  yet  been  established  that  God  has 
never  interposed,  since  the  creation,  by  his  own  direct 
power  in  controlling  the  condition  of  the  world ;  that 
the  sun  and  moon  did  not  stand  still  at  the  command 
of  Joshua ;  that  Christ  did  not  still  the  tempest  by  a 
word ;  that  he  did  not  recall  Lazarus  to  life ;  that  he 
did  not  himself  rise  from  the  dead  and  ascend  to 
heaven.  Science  has  not  yet  brought  these  alleged 
facts  within  its  range,  nor  has  it  demonstrated  that 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  109 

these  facts  could  not  be  proved  by  proper  historical 
testimony.  These  are  not  settled  points  in  Science,  as 
Kepler's  great  laws  of  motion  are,  or  Newton's  law  of 
gravitation  is.  When  they  become  such,  and  not  till 
then,  will  there  be  a  real  conflict  between  Science  and 
the  teachings  of  the  Bible.  So  matters  stand  on  this 
subject  in  this  nineteenth  century. 

The  course  of  events  thus  far,  while  it  has  removed 
many  imaginary  things  from  the  Bible,  and  relieved  us 
from  much  that  encumbered  and  embarrassed  the  argu 
ment  for  the  truth  of  revelation — as  it  has  removed 
many  imaginary  things  from  the  secular  history  of  the 
past,  and  has  relieved  us  from  many  things  that  per 
plexed  and  embarrassed  us  in  regard  to  past  events — 
has,  as  yet,  removed  none  of  the  real  things  affirmed  in 
the  Bible,  and  which,  by  just  laws  of  exegesis,  we  are 
bound  to  maintain,  as,  on  the  parallel  subject  of  secu 
lar  history,  it  has  not  aflected,  and  can  not  affect,  the 
real  events  which  belong  to  history.  The  future  we 
can  not  anticipate.  The  past,  at  least,  is  secure.  What 
Science  is  yet  to  do  it  is  not  ours  to  foresee.  How  this 
matter  is  to  stand  in  the  centuries  to  come,  is,  of  course, 
beyond  our  positive  knowledge.  Whether  Science  can 
eliminate  miracles  as  it  has  done  sorcery,  and  magic, 
and  necromancy,  and  astrology  from  the  world,  is  to 
be  the  inquiry  of  future  ages ;  a  field  of  fair  conflict 
between  the  friends  and  the  enemies  of  revelation. 
History  in  its  great  facts  is  safe  thus  far;  religion  in 
its  great  facts  is  safe  also — each  with  equal  confidence 
may  be  safely  intrusted  to  that  Great  Presiding  Spirit 
that  has  preserved  both  up  to  the  present  time.  It 
will  remain,  in  a  subsequent  part  of  this  course  of  Lec 
tures — it  may  be  demanded  of  us — it  can  not  be  evaded 
— to  inquire  whether  the  principles  of  Science  which 


110  LECTURES    ON   THE 

have  swept  away  so  much  once  deemed  marvelous  and 
supernatural,  will  sweep  away  the  claim  of  all  that  is 
miraculous ;  whether,  in  view  of  all  that  it  has  done,  a 
miracle  can  be  properly  regarded  as  a  historical  subject 
of  belief.  That  point  will  be  reserved  for  a  special  sub 
sequent  Lecture. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  Ill 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE    EVIDENCE    OF   CHRISTIANITY   FROM   ITS   PROP 
AGATION. 

THERE  are  two  forms  of  religion  in  the  world  which 
owe  their  present  existence  and  influence  to  the  fact 
that  they  were  at  first  propagated  by  direct  effort. 
They  are  Christianity  and  Mohammedism.  In  this  re 
spect  they  stand  by  themselves.  The  religion  of  the 
Jews  had  its  origin  with  their  own  nation,  and  grew  up 
with  themselves,  and  identified  itself  with  all  their  leg 
islative,  municipal,  and  military  regulations — a  growth 
among  themselves,  and  not  an  accretion  from  surround 
ing  nations.  They  indeed  sought  to  make  proselytes, 
but  they  never  sought  or  expected  to  make  their  relig 
ion  a  universal  religion.  Moses  labored  to  make  the 
Jewish  people  a  religious  people^  not  to  convert  the  sur 
rounding  nations,  and  at  no  period  of  their  history  did 
the  Hebrews  ever  conceive  the  idea  of  converting  the 
whole  world  to  their  faith.  It  was  the  religion  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  not  the  religion  of  the  world. 

The  Egyptian  religion  was  limited  to  the  Egyptians, 
the  Chaldean  to  the  Chaldeans,  the  Assyrian  to  the  As 
syrians.  It  was  a  fundamental  idea  in  the  ancient  Pa 
gan  religions  that  every  nation  had  its  own  gods,  and 
that  those  gods  were  to  be  respected  by  other  nations. 
The  Greeks  did  not  go  forth  to  convert  the  world  to 
their  Jupiter,  Juno,  or  Mars,  but  were  content  that  all 
others  should  do  honor  as  they  chose  to  their  own  na 
tional  gods.  In  the  Pantheon  at  Rome  the  idea  was 


112  LECTURES    ON   THE 

embodied  in  the  very  name  and  conception  of  the  tem 
ple,  that  all  the  gods  of  the  nations  were  to  be  recog 
nized,  and  that  all  might  have  a  place  there  provided 
they  did  not  disturb  or  displace  those  who  were  rec 
ognized  as  the  Roman  divinities. 

Christianity  and  Mohammedism,  however,  each  alike 
started  out  on  a  different  idea.  They  were  to  be  prop 
agated.  They  were  to  overstep  the  narrow  limits  of 
the  people  among  whom  they  had  their  origin.  They 
were,  wherever  they  went,  to  displace  other  religions. 
They  were  to  convert  heathen  temples  to  churches  or 
mosques,  or,  if  this  could  not  be  done,  they  were  to  dis 
robe  their  priests,  and  to  empty  them  of  worshipers, 
and  to  leave  them  tenantless.  They  were  to  throw 
down  all  altars;  stop  the  effusion  of  blood  in  sacrifice 
every  where;  change  all  laws  that  recognized  the  ex 
istence  of  more  gods  than  one ;  set  up  the  worship  of 
one  God,  and  bring  the  nations  of  the  earth  under  the 
influence  of  a  "  book-revelation" — the  Bible  or  the  Ko 
ran.  They  were  both  to  be  diffused  by  direct  effort ; 
and  the  idea  of  propagation  was  a  fundamental  idea  in 
both — the  one  by  the  sword,  the  other  by  the  influence 
of  truth  and  love. 

They  began  much  alike.  Both  had  their  origin  in 
an  individual  in  whom  alone  was  the  germ  of  the  relig 
ion — was  all  the  religion ;  and  both  those  founders  of 
the  respective  systems  were  obscure — both  poor,  both 
uneducated,  both  without  powerful  alliances  or  ar 
mies.  Neither  of  the  religions  was  a  development  from 
any  previous  form  of  religion,  or  an  outgrowth  of  exist 
ing  views  among  men,  or  of  any  prevailing  form  of  civ 
ilization,  and  neither  of  them  would  have  started  up 
as  such  an  outgrowth  or  development  in  Persia  in  the 
time  of  Cyrus,  or  in  Greece  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  or  in 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  113 

Home  in  the  time  of  the  Antonines,  or  of  any  nation 
now,  if  we  can  suppose  that  the  existing  nations  had 
their  present  forms  of  civilization  or  art  without  any 
religion.  Both  had  very  small  beginnings,  and  weari 
some  weeks  and  months,  and  even  years,  passed  away 
before  they  became  so  rooted  or  accumulated  such  force 
as  to  affect  the  established  institutions,  or  to  excite  ap 
prehension  among  the  friends  of  existing  systems  of  re 
ligion.  The  founders  of  both  experienced  similar  opposi 
tion  from  their  own  families  and  friends,  and  made  their 
first  converts  among  strangers ;  and  both  were  greatly 
persecuted.  The  one,  to  save  his  life  in  infancy,  was 
borne  to  a  distant  land,  and  was  often  obliged  to  resort 
to  measures  derived  from  his  higher  nature  to  save  his 
life,  and  at  last  was  put  to  death  on  a  cross ;  the  other 
was  compelled  to  flee  from  the  place  of  his  birth  and 
from  his  home,  and  to  make  a  distant  city  the  seat  and 
centre  of  his  efforts  to  spread  his  religion.  Neither 
lived  to  see  much  more  than  the  beginning  of  the  diffu 
sion  of  their  religion,  and  the  religion  of  both  was 
spread  with  rapidity  over  extended  regions  only  when 
they  were  no  longer  upon  the  earth  to  direct  its  diffu 
sion  in  person.  Millions  of  human  beings  have  been 
brought  under  the  power  of  each ;  each  has  lived,  since 
its  origin,  through  the  revolutions  of  many  centuries, 
and  amid  all  the  advances  which  the  world  has  made  in 
science  and  in  art ;  each  has  given  laws  to  nations ;  has 
founded  governments ;  has  changed  long-existing  dynas 
ties  ;  has  controlled  kings  on  their  thrones ;  has  organ 
ized  vast  armies ;  has  changed,  if  not  made  permanent, 
the  customs  of  the  world.  The  banners  of  each  in  war 
have  waved  over  numberless  battle-fields,  often  when 
contending  alone  with  other  nations;  often  when  ar 
rayed  against  each  other;  seldom  in  union  against  a 


114  LECTURES    ON   THE 

common  foe.  Both,  though  often  attacked  with  the  ut 
most  violence,  yet  survive,  and  now  together  more 
deeply  influence  the  destiny  of  the  world  than  all  other 
forms  of  religion  combined. 

Both  these  religions  can  not  be  true ;  both  can  not 
have  been  propagated  because  they  were  true.  An  ar 
gument  for  the  divine  origin  of  either  from  the  fact  of 
its  propagation  that  would  be  equally  applicable  to 
both  would  prove  nothing,  and  a  very  material  question 
occurs  whether  there  is  any  such  peculiarity  in  the 
manner  and  fact  of  the  propagation  of  the  one  as  would 
demonstrate  its  divine  origin,  which  would  not  be  ap 
plicable  to  the  other ;  or  whether  the  mere  propagation 
of  a  system  of  philosophy  or  religion,  under  any  circum 
stances,  proves  that  it  is  from  God. 

Without  comparing  the  evidence  in  regard  to  the 
two,  and  reserving  the  remarks  which  distinguish  and 
separate  the  two,  so  far  as  the  argument  is  concerned, 
to  the  closing  part  of  the  Lecture,  I  shall  endeavor,  as 
its  main  purpose,  to  set  before  you  the  argument  for  the 
divine  origin  of  Christianity  as  derived  from  its  propa 
gation. 

This  I  shall  do  by  illustrating  the  following  points : 

I.  That  the  religion  was  propagated ; 

II.  That  the  evidence  or  facts  on  which  this  was  done 
was  sufficient  to  account  for  its  propagation,  or  to  se 
cure  its  propagation  if  such  evidence  existed ;  and, 

ILL  That  the  fact  of  the  propagation  of  Christianity, 
in  the  manner  in  which  it  occurred,  can  be  explained 
only  on  the  supposition  that  there  was  such  evidence, 
and  that  the  religion  is  from  God. 

I.  The  first  point,  as  I  have  announced  it — That  the 
religion  was  propagated — has  so  far  the  appearance  of 
being  a  truism  that  you  maybe  surprised,  perhaps,  that 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  115 

I  have  so  far  reflected  on  your  understandings  as  to  sub 
mit  it  as  a  proposition  to  be  proved  or  even  illustrated. 
I  mean  by  it,  however,  more  than  may  strike  you  on  its 
mere  announcement. 

What  I  mean  by  it,  and  what  is  to  be  illustrated  in 
this  argument  is,  (1.)  That  it  was  not  a  development 
from  any  previous  system  of  religion  or  from  the  state 
of  the  world ;  and  (2.)  That  it  was  propagated  in  the 
manner  and  on  the  grounds  which  are  stated  in  the 
New  Testament. 

(1.)  It  was  not  a  development  from  any  previous  sys 
tem  of  religion  or  from  the  state  of  the  world. 

That  there  are  things  existing  in  society  which  are 
of  the  proper  nature  of  development  from  something 
previously  existing,  or  which  have  sprung  into  being 
because  the  state  of  the  world  demanded  them,  can  not 
be  called  in  question;  and  it  can  not  be  denied  that 
progressive  civilization  seems  to  follow,  in  some  re 
spects,  the  laws  of  development  in  the  vegetable  king 
dom.  It  would  be  a  curious  and  not  unprofitable  in 
quiry  to  ascertain  what  were  the  germs  of  the  present 
civilizations  of  the  world,  and  by  what  laws  they  have 
been  unfolded.  Society  is  thus  a  growth,  formed  of  ac 
cretions  from  without,  as  plants  are,  in  which  the  prin 
ciple  of  life  in  the  germ  attracts  to  itself,  and  moulds 
into  the  appropriate  shape,  under  its  own  laws  of  life, 
whatever  is  necessary  to  its  full  and  perfect  form.  The 
race  thus,  like  the  plant,  is  one,  and  the  progress  is  stead 
ily  and  indefinitely  onward.*  It  is,  in  itself,  a  fair  ques 
tion  whether  all  existing  things  in  society  can  be  traced 

*  "  Social  advancement  is  as  completely  under  the  control  of  natu 
ral  law  as  is  bodily  growth.  The  life  of  an  individual  is  a  miniature 
of  the  life  of  a  nation." — Dr.  Draper,  History  of  the  Intellectual  De 
velopment  of  Europe.  Preface. 


116  LECTURES    ON   THE 

to  this  law  of  development  or  progress ;  and  it  is  per 
fectly  fair  for  any  advocate  of  that  theory  to  endeavor 
to  show  that  Christianity,  so  far  as  it  indicates  progress, 
comes  under  that  law.  So  far,  in  fact,  has  the  principle 
now  adverted  to  been  carried,  that  it  has  been  held  that 
the  great  minds  which  have  been  thrown  up  from  time 
to  time  to  meet  great  emergencies  in  the  world,  and  to 
lift  the  race  to  a  higher  level,  have,  in  fact,  been  created 
by  circumstances,  and  are  simply  a  development  of 
what  may  be  in  the  germ  of  humanity ;  as  the  richest 
fruit,  under  the  highest  cultivation,  is  but  a  fair  devel 
opment  of  what  is  in  the  germ  from  which  it  sprang. 
In  like  manner  it  has  been  held,  and  it  is  quite  material 
for  infidelity  to  hold  it,  that  Christianity  is  but  a  sim 
ple  development  of  a  state  of  things  to  which  the  world 
in  its  progress  was  coming ;  itself,  in  due  time,  to  give 
way  to  some  higher  development  that  shall  spring  out 
of  an  advanced  state  of  society,  and  that  will  better 
than  Christianity  then  represent  the  real  progress  of  the 
world — "Positivism,"  or  some  such  form  of  religion. 
According  to  such  a  theory,  in  the  words  of  another, 
"Christianity  arose  from  a  happy  confluence  of  the 
Greek  and  Roman  with  the  Hebrew  civilization."  The 
state  of  the  world  demanded  a  change  in  religion.  The 
old  religions  were  dying  or  dead.  The  civilization  of 
the  world  was  in  advance  of  those  religions,  and  they 
must  die,  at  any  rate.  But  there  were  in  them  ele 
ments  of  religion  representing  the  progress  which  the 
world  had  made  at  that  time,  which  might  be  min 
gled  with  the  advanced  principles  in  civilization,  and 
out  of  which  a  new  system  might  spring  that  would 
accompany  the  world  in  its  progress  for  many  gener 
ations,  until,  it  also  becoming  decayed  and  effete,  and 
falling  behind  some  distant  age,  some  higher  form  of 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  117 

religion  would  arise  which  would  better  represent  an 
advanced  period  of  the  world. 

Whether  this  is  so  is  a  fair  question,  and  yet  it  would 
appear  not  to  be  of  difficult  solution. 

It  may  be  remarked  in  the  outset  that  Christianity 
has  not  the  appearance  of  being  a  development.  It  had 
no  growth.  It  was  perfect  at  the  commencement  as  it 
came  from  its  Founder,  and  as  it  was  explained  in  the 
New  Testament.  It  became  fixed  at  once,  and  it  has 
not  changed.  It  has  no  doctrines  now  which  it  had  not 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago ;  and  it  had  none  then 
which  it  has  not  now,  for  it  has  lost  none  by  the  way. 
One  of  our  main  embarrassments  in  regard  to  it,  as  com 
pared  with  the  progress  of  the  world,  as  we  shall  see  in  a 
subsequent  Lecture,  is  that  it  is  a  fixed  religion,  not  sus 
ceptible  of  change  or  modification.  To  that  our  adver 
saries  hold  us ;  from  that  we  can  not  retreat.  The  form 
of  Minerva  was  not  more  complete  at  her  birth  than 
Christianity  was,  and  its  form  was  no  more  susceptible 
of  growing  beauty  than  was  hers.  In  proof  that  these 
things  were  so,  I  submit  the  following  remarks : 

(a)  Christianity  was  not  a  development  of  the  Pagan 
religions.     It  sprang  up  in  a  land  remote  from  those  re 
ligions  ;  it  has  no  features  in  common  with  them ;  it 
came,  so  far  as  they  had  life,  into  immediate  and  deadly 
collision  with  them.     The  Egyptian,  the  Babylonian, 
the  Persian,  the  Greek,  the  Roman  mythologies — which 
of  them  or  what  part  of  them  is  represented  by  Chris 
tianity  ?   The  temples,  the  priesthood,  the  sacrifices,  the 
morals — which  of  them  is  represented  by  Christianity  ? 
Which  of  them  welcomed  its  coming — which  of  them 
sprang  forward  to  embrace  it — which  of  them  opened 
its  temples  for  it  ? 

(b)  Christianity  was  not  developed  from  Judaism, 


118  LECTURES    ON   THE 

unless  it  be  in  the  sense,  if  the  comparison  be  not  too 
low,  in  which  the  chrysalis  is  "  developed"  into  the  but 
terfly,  and  the  new  insect  emerges  into  a  new  form  of 
being,  the  former  life  —  the  groveling  caterpillar — 
dying  altogether.  Judaism  died  when  Christianity 
appeared.  Unlike  the  expiring  worm,  indeed,  with  the 
little  life  it  had,  it  evinced  a  deadly  antagonism  to  the 
new  form  —  the  new  religion  —  and  then  it,  like  that 
worm,  expired.  Its  altars  were  overthrown  ;  its  priests 
were  disrobed;  its  temple  was  razed  to  the  founda 
tions  ;  its  sacrifices  were  rendered  unmeaning,  and 
ceased  forever;  its  political  economy  was  ended;  its 
people  were  scattered  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  to  be 
gathered  as  a  nation  no  more.  We  as  Christians,  in 
deed,  admit,  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  that  Christianity 
was  "  developed"  in  a  certain  sense  from  the  Jewish  re 
ligion  ;  that  the  one  had  the  same  origin  as  the  other ; 
that  the  same  life-blood  flowed  through  both  ;  that  the 
Messiah  of  the  one  was  adumbrated  by  the  rites  of  the 
other ;  and  that  the  one  was,  in  the  purpose  of  God, 
preparatory  and  introductory  to  the  other.  But  this 
is  riot  the  sense  in  which  the  enemies  of  Christianity 
would  say  that  Christianity  was  developed  from  Juda 
ism;  and  in  the  sense  in  which  they  use  the  term  it  is 
in  no  manner  true. 

(c)  It  was  not  a  development  from  the  Greek  philoso 
phy,  or  from  the  Roman  philosophy,  the  echo  of  the 
Greek.  That  philosophy,  in  common  with  other  forms 
of  philosophy,  has,  indeed,  at  times  greatly  influenced 
and  modified  Christianity  as  it  has  been  held  in  the 
world;  but  the  systems  have  been  kept  distinct,  and 
have  never  been  confounded.  With  both  these  before 
us  now — for  the  records  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  phi 
losophy  have  been,  from  some  cause,  almost  as  carefully 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  H9 

preserved  as  the  records  of  Christianity  —  we  are  en 
abled  to  make  a  comparison  between  what  Socrates, 
Pythagoras,  Zeno,  and  Plato  taught,  and  what  Jesus 
taught;  and  no  germ  of  the  latter  is  to  be  found  in  the 
former.  It  is  impossible  to  take  the  teachings  of  the 
Greeks,  and  to  show  how  the  peculiarities  of  the  Chris 
tian  system  could  have  grown  out  of  them  ;  and  it  is 
morally  certain  that  if  Christ  had  not  appeared  in  per 
son,  and  if  the  world  had  retained  its  possession  of  the 
Greek  philosophy,  such  a  system  as  that  of  Christian 
ity  would  have  been  forever  unknown  to  men.  From 
some  cause,  the  Greek  philosophy  has  quite  as  much 
affinity  with  the  religion  of  the  Koran  as  it  has  with 
the  religion  of  the  New  Testament  ;  for  it  was  at  Bag 
dad,  in  the  time  of  the  Caliphs,  that  it  was  preserved, 
when  a  dark  night  had  settled  down  on  Christian  Eu 
rope  ;  it  was  at  Bagdad,  in  the  palmy  days  of  the  relig 
ion  of  Mohammed,  that  it  was  most  carefully  studied  ; 
it  was  from  Bagdad,  as,  in  part,  the  result  of  the  Cru 
sades,  that  it  was  given  again  to  Europe. 

(d)  Nor  was  it  a  development  of  the  civilization 
which  the  world  had  attained  at  the  time  when  it  ap 
peared.  Christianity  is  not  Greek  civilization;  it  is 
not  Roman  ;  it  is  not  Egyptian  ;  it  is  not  Persian  ;  it  is 
not  Babylonian.  In  fact,  the  enemies  of  Christianity 
tell  us  that  it  set  itself  much  against  the  civilization  of 
the  world  when  it  appeared.  It  enjoined  peculiar  man 
ners,  and  was  austere,  cold,  dissocial,  severe  ;  it  had  no 
fine  arts  of  its  own,  and  it  looked  with  disdain  on  the 
arts  of  polished  life  in  Greece  and  Rome  ;  it  evinced  no 
affinity  for  poetry,  painting,  or  statuary,  but  looked 
with  distrust  on  them  all  ;  it  attempted  no  rivalship  of 
the  works  of  the  great  Greek  masters,  but  aroused  their 
hostility  by  eschewing  and  avoiding  them;  its  own 


0* 

U1I7IRSIT 


120  LECTURES    ON   THE 

works  of  art  of  that  early  age — needful  for  their  public 
assemblies,  and  needful  to  mark  the  places  where  mar 
tyrs  slept — as  in  the  catacombs  of  Rome,  are  of  the  rud 
est  structure ;  and  its  connection  with  the  arts — poetry, 
painting,  sculpture,  architecture  —  was  of  the  slowest 
growth,  and  was  the  work  of  late,  and  not  of  early 
years.  Moreover,  there  has  been  a  deep  conviction  in 
the  minds  of  many  of  its  best  friends  that  the  extensive 
cultivation  of  the  fine  arts  is  not  conducive  to  the 
growth  of  a  pure  Christianity,  but  that  such  a  cultiva 
tion  is,  from  some  cause,  closely  connected,  in  fact,  with 
a  deterioration  in  doctrine,  and  with  corruption  in  prac 
tical  life.  Christianity  at  its  beginning  was  what  it 
has  ever  been  since.  Less  by  far  than  any  other  sys 
tem  that  has  influenced  mankind  has  it  been  the  result 
of  development  and  growth. 

(e)  Nor  is  it  true  that  it  is  a  development  of  civ 
ilization  as  the  world  has  advanced  since  its  Found 
er  lived,  and  that  it  owes  its  present  form  to  the 
progress  of  the  race.  In  one  breath  we  are  told  by 
Comte  and  his  followers  that  it  falls  behind  the  age ; 
that  it  is  eflete  and  obsolete ;  that  the  world  now,  in 
its  state  of  civilization,  needs  a  better  system,  and 
that  it  is  the  business  of  philosophy  to  reveal  such  a 
system ;  in  the  next  breath,  by  Buckle  and  his  friends, 
that  it  is  the  result  of  the  progressive  civilization 
of  the  world,  and  has  grown  naturally  out  of  the  un- 
foldings  of  the  germs  of  civilized  life.  "  Can  a  fount 
ain  send  forth  at  the  same  place  sweet  water  and  bit 
ter  ?  Can  the  fig-tree  bear  olive-berries  ?  either  a  vine 
figs?  So  can  no  fountain  both  yield  salt  water  and 
fresh." 

Neither  of  these  suppositions  is  true.  Christianity 
has  not  outlived  its  influence  on  the  civilization  of  the 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  121 

world,  nor  has  it  obtained  its  influence  because  it  is  a 
development  of  the  germs  of  civilization  which  the 
world  in  its  progress  is  unfolding. 

In  one  word,  Christianity  is  not  a  "  development" 
at  all.  It  was  mature  and  perfect  at  the  beginning. 
Few  of  the  great  things  which  influence  our  world  mor 
ally  or  physically  are  the  result  of"  development."  In 
the  old  geological  periods,  as  we  are  now  instructed, 
one  was  in  no  sense  a  "  development"  from  the  former ; 
nor  did  the  old  in  any  form  travel  over  into  the  new 
in  an  improved  and  more  perfect  growth.  The  old 
races  were  swept  off  absolutely,  and  new  successive 
creations  of  plants  and  animals  were  brought  upon  the 
changed  earth.  Man  at  last  appeared,  not  as  a  devel 
opment,  but  as  a  new  creation.  So  geology  now  teaches 
us.  In  the  progress  of  society,  of  what  is  the  printing- 
press  a  development  ?  the  railroad — the  magnetic  tele 
graph  ?  Of  what  was  the  mind  of  Shakspeare,  of  Ba 
con,  of  Newton  a  development  ?  What  was  there  in 
the  intellect  of  John  Shakspeare,  originally  a  glover, 
and  then  a  skinner  and  wool-stapler*  in  Henly  Street, 
in  Strat  ford-on- A  von,  that  developed  itself  into  Hamlet, 
and  Lear,  and  Macbeth — that,  in  the  language  of  Hugh 
Miller,  "  set  such  great  thoughts  bounding  through  the 
world  ?"  What  was  there  in  the  obscure  and  humble 
parson,  the  father  of  Newton,  that  "  developed"  itself 
into  the  science  of  fluxions,  and  the  discovery  of  the 
great  law  of  gravitation  ? 

(2.)  The  facts  in  regard  to  the  propagation  of  Chris 
tianity  are  well  settled  in  history. 

(a)  It  had  its  origin  with  Jesus  of  Nazareth.     That 

fact  is  as  clear  as  any  fact  in  history ;  it  is  so  clear  that 

no  one  can  doubt  it ;  it  is  so  clear  that  it  has  never  been 

*  Ulrici,  Dramatic  Art  of  Shakspeare,  p.  70. 

F 


122  LECTURES    ON   THE 

denied.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  a  real  historical  person 
age.  What  he  was,  who  he  was,  whence  he  came,  what 
was  the  object  of  his  coming,  are  other  questions  ;  but 
that  he  lived,  that  he  taught,  that  he  died — that  he  was 
born  in  the  time  of  Augustus  Caesar,  and  died  in  the 
time  of  Tiberius — are  points  settled  by  all  history.  In 
fidelity  has  not  ventured  to  call  these  things  in  ques 
tion.  And  the  most  learned  and  able  forms  of  skepti 
cism  have  been  employed  in  showing  how,  these  facts 
being  assumed,  the  growth  and  spread  of  Christianity 
can  be  explained.  The  Jesus  of  Strauss  is  a  real  histor 
ical  personage,  around  whom  his  disciples  and  followers 
have  drawn  the  myths  that  have  grown  up  into  Chris 
tianity  as  it  is ;  the  Jesus  of  Renan  is  a  real  personage 
— an  uneducated  peasant,  ignorant  of  history,  of  geog 
raphy,  of  literature — unacquainted  even  with  the  his 
tory  of  the  Herods  of  his  own  country,  and  a  stranger 
to  the  history  of  Rome,  yet  a  young  man  of  remarkable 
and  unparalleled  genius,  far  beyond  his  own  age,  or  any 
age — ultimately,  as  springing  from  the  exertion  of  his 
own  unconscious  powers,  conceiving  the  idea  that  he 
was  the  Messiah,  and  was,  in  a  form  before  unknown, 
to  set  up  the  worship  of  the  true  God,  and  to  change 
the  religion  of  the  world ;  the  Jesus  of  Gibbon  is  a  real 
personage,  the  influence  of  whose  life  and  opinions  on 
the  world  is  to  be  explained  in  the  best  way  in  which 
it  can  be. 

(b)  This  religion  was  propagated  mainly  by  very 
humble  men;  by  men  who  were  uneducated;  by  men 
for  the  most  part  fishermen — having  no  original  supe 
riority  above  other  fishermen  on  the  shores  of  the  Lake 
of  Galilee,  a  rude  and  uncultivated  region,  or  above 
fishermen  as  they  are  found  now  around  Cape  Cod  or 
on  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland — among  the  last  of  men 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  123 

that  would  be  selected  for  the  work  of  religious  mis 
sions,  or  for  founding  a  religion,  or  for  measuring 
strength  with  the  philosophy  of  the  world :  men  with 
out  rank,  or  position,  or  influence,  except  as  they  created 
it  in  the  effort  to  spread  the  new  religion ;  men  belong 
ing  to  a  despised  race — a  race  known  indeed  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  their  own  narrow  country,  but  mostly  as 
slaves,  and  characterized  by  Tacitus  as  "  the  enemies  of 
the  human  race ;"  men  belonging  to  a  nation  that  had 
produced  nothing  in  sculpture,  in  painting,  in  philoso 
phy,  in  arts,  or  in  arms,  to  make  them  known  abroad ; 
men  belonging  to  a  race  which  heathen  poets  conde 
scended  to  notice  only  with  contempt.* 

(c)  The  facts  in  the  history  of  its  propagation  are  as 
well  settled  as  any  other  facts  in  history — so  well  set 
tled  as  to  admit  of  no  skepticism  in  regard  to  them. 
There  were  no  armies ;  there  were  no  military  leaders. 
The  conquests  of  Christianity  were  not,  certainly  until 
it  ascended  the  throne  of  the  Ca3sars,  the  result  of 
bloody  victories.  The  facts  in  regard  to  its  propaga 
tion  have  been  traced  with  great  learning,  impartiality, 
and  fidelity  by  Mr.  Gibbon,  and  accord,  as  stated  by 
him,  with  all  the  other  records  that  have  been  handed 
down  to  us.  They  have  not  been  called  in  question  by 
Strauss  or  Renan,  and  infidelity  has  not  ventured,  if  it 
had  any  desire  to  do  it,  to  found  its  attacks  on  Chris 
tianity  on  a  denial  of  those  facts.  It  was  in  Mr.  Gib 
bon's  path  to  state  those  facts,  and  he  has  done  it  with 
out  hesitation,  and  without  an  attempt  to  pervert  them. 
In  fact,  he  has  traced  that  history  in  regard  to  the  prop 
agation  of  Christianity  as  the  result  of  the  labors  of 
humble  and  unknown  men,  without  influence  or  arms, 
as  faithfully  and  impartially  as  he  has  described  the 
*  Credat  Judeeus  Apella. — Horace. 


124  LECTURES    ON   THE 

character  of  the  Antonines  or  Julian,  or  as  he  has  traced 
the  history  of  the  spread  of  the  religion  of  Mohammed. 
(d)  The  religion  was  propagated  on  the  ground  of 
miracles;  on  the  affirmation  that  Christ  rose  from  the 
dead ;  on  the  belief  of  the  facts  as  they  are  stated  in 
the  New  Testament.  Whatever  may  be  said  about 
the  truth  on  any  of  these  points — whether,  for  example, 
Christ  actually  rose  from  the  dead,  or  whether  the  hal 
lucination  of  a  woman  has  taught  mankind  to  believe 
this,  as  Kenan  alleges :  "  The  strong  imagination  of 
Mary  Magdalene,"  says  he,  "  has  enacted  a  principal 
part.  Divine  power  of  love  !  sacred  moments  in  which 
the  passion  of  a  hallucinated  woman  gives  to  the  world 
a  resurrected  God"* — yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  religion  was,  in  fact,  propagated  on  the  ground  of 
the  belief  of  the  facts  stated  in  the  New  Testament,  and 
that  if  these  had  not  been  believed,  the  religion  could 
not,  and  would  not  have  been  spread  over  the  world. 
The  New  Testament  is  full  of  this,  and  history  is  full 
of  it.  Mr.  Gibbon  did  not  venture  to  call  this  fact  in 
question,  though  he  has  stated  it,  as  it  became  him  to 
do  with  his  views  of  religion,  in  connection  with  the 
fact,  as  undoubtedly  true  also,  that  for  ages  the  belief 
prevailed  in  the  Church  that  miracles  continued  to  be 
wrought,  and  that "  that  belief  must  have  conduced  very 
frequently  to  the  conversion  of  infidels. "f  The  only 
point  which  I  am  now  making  is,  that  the  religion  was 
propagated  and  received  in  the  world  on  the  ground  of 
the  belief  that  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament  were 
true,  and  especially  on  the  belief  that  Christ  rose  from 
the  dead. 

*  Life  of  Jesus,  p.  357. 

f  See  his  statement  in  full  in  vol.  i.,  p.  264-267,  of  his  History, 
Harper's  ed.,  1829. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  125 

II.  The  second  inquiry  is,  Whether  the  supposed  evi 
dence  of  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity,  on  which  it 
was  propagated,  was  of  such  a  nature  as  to  account  for 
the  facts  in  regard  to  its  spread  in  the  world  ;  to  justi 
fy  men  in  embracing  it ;  and  to  explain  the  causes  of 
the  great  changes  which  it  made.  If  those  evidences 
were  real,  would  they  explain  the  facts  which  followed  ; 
would  they  be  such  as  to  show  that  the  action  of  the 
world  in  the  case  was  right  and  wise  ;  would  it  be  true 
that  in  subsequent  times  the  race  could  look  upon  this 
part  of  its  history  with  'complacency  and  approbation  ? 
for  there  is  much,  very  much,  in  the  past  history  of  man 
on  which  we  can  not  thus  look,  and  which,  for  the  hon 
or  of  our  nature,  the  historian  of  human  affairs  would 
be  glad  to  forget. 

It  will  not  be  practicable  or  necessary  to  dwell  long 
on  this  part  of  the  subject.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  part  of 
the  argument  which  I  am  submitting  to  you  which 
would  be  most  readily  yielded  by  those  who  deny  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  religion. 

What  is  to  be  supposed  in  the  case  is  this,  that  the 
things  which  are  revealed  in  the  New  Testament  actu 
ally  occurred  as  they  are  stated  there,  and  that  credi 
ble  proof  that  they  did  actually  occur  was  furnished  to 
mankind — so  furnished  that  the  world  actually  received 
it  as  credible  proof.  Let  it  be  supposed,  therefore,  that 
the  things  narrated  in  the  New  Testament  actually  took 
place,  and  that  the  world  believed  this  —  that  Jesus 
lived;  that  he  was  born  and  reared  in  the  manner  re 
lated  ;  that  he  taught ;  that  he  proclaimed  the  doc 
trines  which  are  attributed  to  him ;  that  he  was  pure 
and  holy  in  his  character ;  that  he  answered  the  de 
scription  of  a  long  series  of  ancient  predictions  in  re 
gard  to  the  Messiah ;  that  he  healed  the  sick  by  mira- 


126  LECTURES    ON   THE 

cle ;  that  he  opened  the  eyes  of  the  blind,  and  caused 
the  lame  man  to  leap  as  an  hart ;  that  he  cast  out  dev 
ils  ;  that  he  raised  the  dead ;  that  he  was  put  to  death 
on  a  cross ;  that  the  earth  trembled,  and  that  the  sun 
withdrew  his  beams  when  he  died  ;  that  he  himself  rose 
from  the  dead  and  ascended  to  heaven — let  these  things 
be  supposed,  and  let  them  be  credited  by  mankind. 
The  question  then  is,  whether  there  was  any  thing  in 
the  actual  reception  of  the  system  which  can  not  be 
explained  on  this  supposition ;  any  thing  that  can  not 
be  vindicated  and  justified  as  honorable  to  human  na 
ture  ?  Is  there  any  thing  in  it  which  the  world  ought 
to  desire  to  forget  ?  Is  there  any  thing  in  reference  to 
the  actual  changes  which  Christianity  has  made  in  the 
affairs  of  nations  which  the  historian  of  human  affairs 
would  be  at  a  loss  in  accounting  for?  Is  there  any 
thing  in  the  reception  of  Christianity  which  would 
place  the  race  on  the  same  humiliating  ground  on  which 
the  past  history  of  the  world  in  regard  to  sorcery,  and 
witchcraft,  and  necromancy,' and  imposture  in  general, 
has  placed  it  ? 

Nowhere  would  the  explanation  of  things  be  so  easy ; 
nowhere  would  the  historian  have  more  occasion  to 
congratulate  himself  than  in  assuming  these  as  facts  in 
the  explanation  of  the  history  of  the  world.  How  easy 
would  have  been  the  task  of  Mr.  Gibbon,  how  much 
hard  labor  would  it  have  saved  him,  if  he  had  "  seen 
his  way  clear"  to  admit  these  things  to  be  true  ! 

I  may  be  able,  in  the  proper  place,  to  show,  that  if  the 
things  attributed  to  Mohammed  in  history  actually  oc 
curred,  or  were  real  historical  events,  the  changes  which 
were  consequent  on  the  introduction  of  his  religion  into 
the  world  are  susceptible  of  easy  explanation.  I  at 
tempt  no  more  than  this  in  the  remarks  now  made  in 
regard  to  the  establishment  of  Christianity. 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  127 

(1.)  These  things  were  relied  on:  that  Jesus  lived; 
that  he  uttered  great  truths  about  God ;  that  he  taught 
the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  resur 
rection  of  the  dead,  and  the  final  judgment ;  that  he 
wrought  miracles  in  amazing  numbers;  that  he  raised 
the  dead ;  that  he  himself  rose  from  the  dead ;  that  he 
ascended  to  heaven ;  that  he  made  an  atonement  for  the 
sins  of  the  world.  The  system  never  would  have  been 
preached  at  all  if  these  things  had  not  been  believed  to 
have  occurred ;  it  never  would  have  been  embraced  if 
it  had  not  been  believed  that  they  were  true.  The 
world  did  believe  them ;  the  world  acted  on  the  belief. 
Mr.  Gibbon  could  not  deny  this ;  no  man  can  now  deny 
it.  The  reliance  in  spreading  the  Gospel  was  not  on 
military  power;  on  philosophy;  on  superior  claims  in 
science ;  on  a  higher  civilization ;  on  appeals  to  the  pas 
sions  of  men ;  on  the  promise  of  temporal  advantages ; 
on  necromancy,  juggling,  fortune-telling,  or  sorcery ;  on 
new  theories  about  government  and  law.  All  the  ac 
counts  agree  in  this,  that  it  was  not  on  these  things,  but 
on  the  belief  of  the  truth  of  the  facts  of  Christianity  as 
we  have  them  in  the  records  of  the  New  Testament  now. 

(2.)  The  old  systems  of  religion  sat  loosely  on  the 
world,  and  the  world  was,  in  a  certain  sense,  waiting 
for  a  new  religion.  This  was  undoubtedly  the  case 
in  Judea,  for  the  power  of  the  Jewish  religion  was 
waning,  and  the  nation  was,  on  principle  and  in  ac 
cordance  with  their  prophecies,  waiting  for  an  impor 
tant  change  in  religion  when  their  Messiah  should  ap 
pear.  The  same  thing  was  substantially  true  elsewhere. 
There  is  undoubted  truth  in  a  remark  which  Mr.  Gib 
bon  makes,  that  the  systems  of  religion  prevailing  in 
the  Roman  empire  were  all  "  regarded  by  philosophers 
as  equally  false,  by  statesmen  as  equally  necessary,  and 


128  LECTURES    ON   THE 

by  the  mass  of  the  people  as  equally  true."  It  is  also 
an  undoubted  fact,  established  on  the  well-known  testi 
mony  of  the  writers  of  that  age,  that  there  was  a  gen 
eral  expectation  prevailing  that  some  remarkable  per 
son  would  soon  appear  whose  coming  would  materially 
change  the  condition  of  the  world.  Thus  Suetonius 
(ch.  iv.)  says :  "  An  ancient  and  settled  persuasion  pre 
vailed  throughout  the  East  that  the  fates  had  decreed 
some  one  to  proceed  out  of  Judea  who  should  attain 
universal  empire."  Thus  Tacitus  (Annals,  5, 13),  says: 
"Many  were  persuaded  that  it  was  contained  in  the 
books  of  their  priests  that  at  that  very  time  the  East 
should  prevail,  and  that  some  one  should  proceed  from 
Judea,  and  should  possess  the  dominion."  It  is  not,  in 
deed,  to  be  maintained  that  this  expectation  was  uni 
versal,  nor  is  it  to  be  affirmed  that  Paganism  or  Judaism 
had  lost  their  power  altogether,  for  there  was  still  vi 
tality  enough  in  both  to  arouse  themselves  to  desperate 
efforts  to  destroy  the  new  religion  when  it  appeared, 
in  furious  storms  of  persecution. 

Yet,  that  the  power  of  the  religions  of  the  world  as 
controlling  mankind  was  waning,  if  not  almost  extinct, 
is  the  undoubted  testimony  of  history.  Mr.  Gibbon, 
speaking  of  the  influence  of  the  prevailing  religions  on 
the  public  mind,  makes  the  following,  among  other  re 
marks  :  "  We  are  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  emi 
nent  persons  who  nourished  in  the  age  of  Cicero,  and 
the  first  Caesars,  with  their  actions,  their  characters,  and 
their  motives,  to  be  assured  that  their  conduct  in  this 
life  was  never  regulated  by  any  serious  conviction  of 
the  rewards  and  punishments  of  a  future  state"  (vol. 
i.,p.  260).  "The  general  system  of  their  mythology," 
says  he,  "  was  unsupported  by  any  solid  proofs ;  and  the 
wisest  among  the  Pagans  had  already  disclaimed  its 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  129 

usurped  authority." — Ibid.  "The  doctrine  of  a  future 
state,"  he  adds,  "  was  scarcely  considered  among  the 
devout  polytheists  of  Greece  and  Rome  as  a  fundamen 
tal  article  of  faith." — Ibid.  In  connection  with  these 
remarks,  and  as  illustrating  the  religious  state  of  the 
world  when  Christianity  appeared,  and  as  accounting, 
in  some  measure,  for  its  reception  by  mankind,  he  makes, 
also,  the  following  important  observations : 

"When  Christianity  appeared  in  the  world,  even 
these  faint  and  imperfect  impressions"  [respecting  re 
ligion  in  the  prevailing  form]  "  had  lost  much  of  their 
original  power.  Human  reason,  which  by  its  unassisted 
strength  is  incapable  of  perceiving  the  mysteries  of 
faith,  had  already  obtained  an  easy  triumph  over  the 
folly  of  Paganism ;  and  when  Tertullian  or  Lactantius 
employ  their  labors  in  exposing  its  falsehood  and  ex 
travagance,  they  are  obliged  to  transcribe  the  eloquence 
of  Cicero  or  the  wit  of  Lucian.  The  contagion  of  these 
skeptical  writings  had  been  diifused  far  beyond  the 
number  of  their  readers.  The  fashion  of  incredulity 
was  communicated  from  the  philosopher  to  the  man  of 
pleasure  or  business,  from  the  noble  to  the  plebeian,  and 
from  the  master  to  the  menial  slave  who  waited  at  his 
table,  and  who  eagerly  listened  to  the  freedom  of  his 
conversation.  On  public  occasions  the  philosophic  part 
of  mankind  affected  to  treat  with  respect  and  decency 
the  religious  institutions  of  their  country ;  but  their  se 
cret  contempt  penetrated  through  the  thin-  and  awk 
ward  disguise ;  and  even  the  people,  when  they  discov 
ered  that  their  deities  were  rejected  and  derided  by 
those  whose  rank  or  understanding  they  were  accus 
tomed  to  reverence,  were  filled  with  doubts  and  appre 
hensions  concerning  the  truth  of  those  doctrines,  to 
which  they  had  yielded  the  most  implicit  belief.  The 
F2 


130  LECTURES    ON   THE 

decline  of  ancient  prejudice  exposed  a  very  numerous 
portion  of  human  kind  to  the  danger  of  a  painful  and 
comfortless  situation.  A  state  of  skepticism  and  sus 
pense  may  amuse  a  few  inquisitive  minds.  But  the 
practice  of  superstition  is  so  congenial  to  the  multitude, 
that  if  they  are  forcibly  awakened,  they  still  regret  the 
loss  of  their  pleasing  vision.  Their  love  of  the  marvel 
ous  and  supernatural,  their  curiosity  with  regard  to  fu 
ture  events,  and  their  strong  propensity  to  extend  their 
hopes  and  fears  beyond  the  limits  of  the  visible  world, 
were  the  principal  causes  which  favored  the  establish 
ment  of  polytheism.  So  urgent  on  the  vulgar  is  the 
necessity  of  believing,  that  the  fall  of  any  system  of 
mythology  will  most  probably  be  succeeded  by  the  in 
troduction  of  some  other  mode  of  superstition.  Some 
deities  of  a  more  recent  and  fashionable  cast  might 
soon  have  occupied  the  deserted  temples  of  Jupiter  and 
Apollo,  if,  in  the  decisive  moment,  the  wisdom  of  Prov 
idence  [sic]  had  not  interposed  a  genuine  revelation, 
fitted  to  inspire  the  most  rational  esteem  and  convic 
tion,  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  was  adorned  with  all 
that  could  attract  the  curiosity,  the  wonder,  and  the 
veneration  of  the  people.  In  their  actual  disposition, 
as  many  were  almost  disengaged  from  their  artificial 
prejudices,  but  equally  susceptible  and  desirous  of  a  de 
vout  attachment,  an  object  much  less  deserving  would 
have  been  sufficient  to  fill  the  vacant  place  in  their 
hearts,  and  to  gratify  the  uncertain  eagerness  of  their 
passions.  Those  who  are  inclined  to  pursue  this  reflec 
tion,  instead  of  viewing  with  astonishment  the  rapid 
progress  of  Christianity,  will  perhaps  be  surprised  that 
its  success  was  not  still  more  rapid  and  still  more  uni 
versal."* 

*  Decline  and  Fall,  vol.  i.,  p.  280,  281. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  131 

(3.)  The  new  system  contained  statements  on  points 
which  men  had  desired  to  know,  and  on  which  they 
despaired  of  obtaining  information  from  any  other 
source.  We  shall  see  in  a  subsequent  Lecture  (Lecture 
IX.)  that  Christianity  meets  and  satisfies  original  wants 
in  man — wants  in  his  very  nature  as  a  religious  being, 
and  wants  as  a  fallen  being — and  that  it  supplies,  in  the 
great  sacrifice  which  it  reveals  as  made  for  sin,  what 
men  had  been  elsewhere  seeking  in  vain.  The  remark 
which  I  am  now  making  is,  that  the  fact  that  those 
doctrines  were  promulgated  and  believed  in  the  early 
propagation  of  Christianity,  will  go  far  to  explain  the 
fact  that  the  religion  was  embraced,  or  to  account  for 
the  success  attending  the  efforts  for  its  dissemination. 
Mr.  Gibbon  has  himself  shown  this  with  great  skill  in 
reference  to  the  doctrines  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
and  of  a  future  state,  for  he  has  made  this  one  of  the 
five  causes  which  will  explain  the  fact  of  the  propaga 
tion  of  the  Christian  religion.*  The  point  which  I  am 
now  making  is,  that  what  was  true  of  those  doctrines 
is  true  of  other  doctrines  of  Christianity  also.  It  is  no 
less  a  fact  that  they  met  the  wants  and  aspirations  of 
men.  And  as  we  know  that  the  religion  was  propa 
gated  and  embraced  on  the  belief  of  these  truths,  it  fol 
lows  that  if  it  is  assumed  that  they  were  true,  the  fact 
would  go  far  to  explain  the  reception  of  the  religion  in 
the  world.  The  new  religion  met  a  conscious  want  of 
men  in  the  failure  of  polytheism,  and  was  embraced  in 
part  because  it  met  such  a  want.  That  there  is  a 
God,  one  God ;  that  there  is  a  Savior ;  that  the  soul 
is  immortal ;  that  there  is  a  future  state ;  that  the  par 
don  of  sin  may  be  obtained,  are  truths  which  men  had 
panted  to  know,  but  which  had  been  found  in  no  other 
*  Decline  and  Fall,  vol.  i.,  p.  259-2G4. 


132  LECTURES    ON   THE 

system,  and  which  they  had  ceased  to  hope  could  be 
obtained  in  connection  with  philosophy  or  polytheism. 
(4.)  Men  will  sooner  or  later  yield  to  that  which 
seems  to  them  to  have  the  force  of  truth,  or  which  they 
believe  to  be  true.  The  foundation  of  this  remark  is, 
that  there  is  that  in  the  human  mind,  as  we  shall  see 
in  another  part  of  this  course  (Lecture  IX.),  which  cor 
responds  with  truth,  or  which  is  designed  to  secure  the 
reception  and  influence  of  truth  in  the  world,  and  this 
principle  or  law  of  our  nature  will  explain  the  progress' 
which  truth  on  any  subject  has  made.  It  is,  moreover, 
the  most  cheering  thing  in  regard  to  the  future,  for  it 
makes  it  certain  that  truth  on  all  subjects,  religion  as 
well  as  others,  will  ultimately  be  triumphant.  It  is  to  be 
admitted  that  there  may  be  that  in  the  mind  itself  which 
will  temporarily  resist  this.  There  may  be  the  preju 
dices  of  education,  of  bigotry,  of  country,  of  custom,  of 
party,  and  of  religion  —  the  "idols"  of  the  "tribe,"  of 
the  "  cave,"  of  the  "  forum,"  and  of  the  "  theatre,"  as 
Lord  Bacon  calls  them* — but  those  prejudices  truth 
will  overcome.  There  may  be  laws,  customs,  and  vest 
ed  interests ;  there  may  be  the  influence  of  a  priest 
hood  ;  there  may  be  the  resistance  of  a  false  philoso 
phy  ;  there  may  be  all  the  power  derived  from  hered 
itary  rank;  there  may  be  all  that  there  is  in  the  pas 
sions  of  men,  and  the  love  of  ease  and  indulgence ; 
there  may  be  all  the  power  of  a  gross  immorality,  sanc 
tioned  by  religion,  by  custom,  and  by  law ;  and  there 
may  be  all  the  power  of  a  state  or  empire.  All  this 
Christianity  encountered ;  most  of  this  any  new  form  of 
religion,  or  any  new  opinion  in  philosophy,  will  be  likely 
to  encounter  in  the  world.  Truth  may  seem  to  begin 

*  Idola  tribus,  idola  specus,  idola  fori,  idola  theatri. — Novum  Or- 
ganum,  lib.  i.,  aphor.  xxxix. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  133 

its  way  as  by  beating  against  adamantine  walls.  It 
may  appear  to  accomplish  no  more  than  the  ocean  does 
with  its  raging  billows  against  rock-bound  coasts,  or 
along  the  pebbly  shore.  It  makes  the  attack,  and  then 
retires.  If  the  pebble  is  removed  a  little  inward,  it 
will  come  back  again ;  if  the  sand  is  washed  a  little,  it 
at  once  fills  up ;  if  the  solid  rocks  tremble,  they  still 
stand  firm.  Truth  may  seem  to  be  stayed,  and  to  die 
out ;  but  it  will  not. 

"Truth,  crushed  to  earth,  will  rise  again; 
The  eternal  years  of  God  are  hers." 

Time  only  is  needed  for  its  triumph.  In  due  time  it 
will  be  in  the  ascendant ;  and,  great  as  was  the  oppo 
sition  which  Christianity  met  when  first  announced  to 
the  world,  yet  it  did  triumph,  and  the  principle  now 
laid  down  will  account  for  the  fact  that  it  triumphed. 
The  same  principle,  also,  will  account  for  the  fact  that 
it  is  kept  up  in  the  world ;  and  the  same  principle 
makes  it  absolutely  certain  that  it  will  ultimately  pre 
vail  all  over  the  earth. 

(5.)  A  belief  in  miracles  will  convince  men  of  the 
truth  of  a  religion  which  they  are  wrought  to  estab 
lish,  and  faith  in  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament 
was  one  of  the  main  grounds  on  which  the  system  was 
embraced.  The  process  of  argument  by  which  this  is 
proved  is  a  very  brief  one.  It  is  simply  that  the  human 
mind  is  so  made  that  it  can  not  believe  that  the  laws 
of  nature  would  be  set  aside  to  confirm  a  falsehood  or 
to  commend  an  impostor.  Whatever  may  be  true  in 
regard  to  the  converse  of  this  proposition,  whether  the 
human  mind  is  so  made  that  it  can  believe  that  the 
laws  of  nature  will  be  set  aside  to  confirm  a  true  sys 
tem  of  religion,  or  to  commend  a  true  embassador  from 
heaven  to  the  world — which  is  now  the  great  question 


134  LECTURES    ON   THE 

in  our  conflict  with  scientific  infidelity,  yet  there  is  a 
universal  opinion — men  can  not  believe  otherwise — that 
God  would  not,  and  could  not,  interpose  in  this  man 
ner  in  behalf  of  an  impostor  and  a  false  system  of  re 
ligion.  If  the  dead  are  raised,  and  if  men  believe  that 
they  are  raised,  then  they  will  believe  also  that  he  who 
does  this  is  invested  with  special  power  by  God,  and 
has  a  special  commission  from  him,  for  created  power 
does  not  raise  the  dead. 

Mr.  Gibbon  has  been  at  considerable  pains  (vol.  i.,  p. 
264-267)  to  illustrate  the  fact  that  "supernatural  gifts, 
even  in  this  life,  were  ascribed  to  the  Christians  above 
the  rest  of  mankind,"  and  "  must  have  conduced  to 
their  own  comfort,  and  very  frequently  to  the  convic 
tion  of  infidels ;"  and  he  has  made  it  a  point  to  consid 
er  when  these  marvelous  powers  ceased  in  the  Church. 
Mr.  Lecky,  with  a  different  purpose,  and  with  great 
ability,  has  engaged  in  the  inquiry  when  miracles  really 
ceased  in  the  Church,  and  has  described  the  prevailing 
state  of  mind  on  the  subject  at  the  present  time  (His 
tory  of  Rationalism  in  Europe,  vol.  i.,p.  155-202)  ;  but, 
whenever  it  ceased,  no  one  can  doubt,  not  even  Mr. 
Gibbon,  that  the  belief  that  such  miracles  were  wrought 
would  account  for  the  spread  of  the  Gospel.  Indeed, 
that,  as  has  been  remarked,  is  one  of  the  main  points  by 
which  he  accounts  for  its  diffusion  in  the  Roman  empire. 

I  can  not  but  be  justified,  therefore,  in  the  conclusion 
which  I  draw  from  these  things,  that  if  the  miracles  as 
cribed  to  the  Savior  were  wrought,  this  fact  will  ac 
count  for  the  spread  of  Christianity  in  the  world,  and 
will  justify  its  reception.  Somehow  the  mind  of  man 
is  so  made  that  such  a  result  must  follow. 

(6.)  The  belief  of  the  things  on  which  Christianity 
was  propagated  would  account  for  all  the  facts  which 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  135 

occurred  in  the  conversion  of  men ;  in  their  forsaking 
sin ;  in  their  yielding  to  the  claims  of  virtue  ;  in  the 
reformations  of  morals  and  of  life  which  followed  in 
the  path  of  the  apostles.  That  men  did  forsake  their 
sins,  and  that  they  did  lead  upright  and  pure  lives  un 
der  the  influence  of  this  system,  is  a  simple  matter  of 
historic  truth  which  no  one  would  call  in  question.  It 
is  apparent  on  the  face  of  the  New  Testament ;  it  has 
come  down  to  us  in  sacred  history ;  it  is  confirmed  by 
what  occurs  now ;  and  it  is  established  by  what,  with 
some,  would  be  a  more  decisive  authority  than  all  the 
rest,  that  of  Mr.  Gibbon ;  for  he  would  have  given  a 
different  representation  of  the  influence  of  Christianity 
on  morals  if  God,  while  he  allowed  him  to  be  an  infidel 
in  religion,  had  not  made  him  faithful  as  an  historian. 

Of  the  five  causes  on  which,  according  to  him,  the  re 
ception  of  Christianity  in  the  world  can  be  explained 
without  the  necessity  of  admitting  its  divine  origin,  the 
purity  of  its  morals  is  one.  It  became  necessary,  there 
fore,  in  such  an  argument,  to  show  that  the  early  Chris 
tians  were  distinguished  for  their  pure  moral  character, 
and  that  Christianity,  in  fact,  promoted  the  reformation 
of  mankind.  This  point  has  been  elaborated  by  him 
with  consummate  skill  (vol.  i.,  p.  267-271).  If  there  is 
a  sneer  on  his  face  while  he  writes,  and  an  underlying 
sarcasm  as  his  pen  moves  so  smoothly,  it  is  no  more 
than  we  were  to  expect;  but  the  fact  is  one  which 
could  not  but  be  stated  in  an  honest  account  of  the  De 
cline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  use  to  be 
made  of  it  was  another  question  for  him,  as  it  is  for  us ; 
but  historic  verity  demanded  of  Mr.  Gibbon  that  the 
statement  should  be  made,  as  it  is  made,  that  "the 
primitive  Christian  demonstrated  his  faith  by  his  vir 
tues"  (vol.  i.,  p.  267),  and  that  full  credit  should  be  given 


136  LECTURES    ON   THE 

to  the  statement  that  "when  the  Christians  of  Bithynia 
were  brought  before  the  tribunal  of  the  younger  Pliny, 
they  assured  the  proconsul  that,  far  from  being  engaged 
in  any  unlawful  conspiracy,  they  were  bound  by  a  sol 
emn  obligation  to  abstain  from  the  commission  of  those 
crimes  which  disturb  the  private  or  public  peace  of  so 
ciety — from  theft,  robbery,  adultery,  perjury,  and  fraud" 
(vol.  i.,p.  267,  268),  and  that  "  the  friends  of  Christian 
ity  may  acknowledge,"  says  he,  "  without  a  blush,  that 
many  of  the  most  eminent  saints  had  been  before  their 
baptism  the  most  abandoned  sinners"  (vol.  i.,  p.  267). 

Now,  if  the  system  of  Christianity  is  true,  such  facts 
would  occur  just  as  it* is  stated  that  they  did  occur; 
that  is,  it  would  produce  precisely  such  effects  as  these, 
for  its  doctrines  are  designed  to  produce  such  effects. 
It  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  these  effects  must 
follow  from  such  a  system  of  doctrines,  and  the  causes 
and  effects  in  such  a  case  would  be  commensurate  with 
each  other;  in  other  words,  the  supposition  of  the  truth 
of  Christianity  would  account  for  the  facts  in  its  prop 
agation. 

(7.)  In  like  manner,  the  supposition  of  the  truth  of 
the  facts  in  Christianity  would,  if  they  were  believed, 
shake  the  faith  of  men  in  the  old  systems  of  religion ;  for, 
if  Christianity  was  true,  these  systems  were  of  course 
false,  and  men  would  perceive  it  and  abandon  them: 
an  event  which  actually  occurred,  and  which  can  thus 
be  satisfactorily  explained. 

(8.)  On  the  same  supposition,  also,  all  the  arrange 
ments  for  a  priesthood,  and  for  the  offering  of  sacrifices, 
alike  among  the  Jews  and  the  heathen,  would  be  seen 
to  be  useless  and  unnecessary,  and  would  soon  lose  their 
hold  on  men — as  was  the  fact.  The  Jewish  priesthood, 
as  a  priesthood,  ceased  almost  immediately  on  the  in- 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  137 

troduction  of  Christianity ;  the  altar  was  overthrown, 
the  temple  was  demolished,  and  Judaism  expired.  The 
same  effect  followed  among  the  heathen.  The  fires 
ceased  to  burn  on  the  altars ;  the  priests  were  disrobed ; 
the  temples  were  closed;  the  vast  fabric  of  superstition 
melted  away.  This  effect  undoubtedly  followed  on  the 
preaching  of  Christianity,  for  it  is  attested  by  all  his 
tory,  and  it  was  an  effect  which  must  follow  if  Chris 
tianity  was  true.  The  supposition  that  it  was  true,  or 
was  believed  to  be  true,  will  account  for  the  effects 
which  actually  followed. 

(9.)  On  the  same  principle,  also,  it  would  follow  that 
all  the  laws  made  for  the  support  of  Paganism  would 
soon  become  obsolete,  and  would  lose  their  power,  so 
that  they  could  not  be  revived,  and  so  that  it  would  be 
come  necessary  to  adjust  the  laws  to  the  new  order  of 
things.  If  the  religion  should  lose  its  hold  on  the  peo 
ple  ;  if  the  temples  and  the  altars  should  be  forsaken ; 
if  the  priesthood  should  become  powerless ;  if  the  Lares 
and  the  Penates  should  be  treated  as  useless  lumber ; 
if  the  Dies  Fasti  should  cease  to  attract  the  people ;  if 
faith  in  the  gods  should  cease,  then  all  the  laws  which 
upheld  those  things  would  be  unmeaning  and  power 
less,  and  the  legislation  of  the  state  would  be  adjusted 
to  the  new  religion:  an  event  which  actually  occurred, 
and  which  is  susceptible  thus  of  an  easy  explanation. 

(10.)  It  would  also  follow,  however,  that  there  would 
probably  be  a  conflict  between  the  two  systems,  and 
that,  while  there  was  power  on  the  one  side  and  feeble 
ness  on  the  other,  there  would  be  an  attempt  to  sustain 
the  one  and  to  destroy  the  other  by  power — the  power 
of  the  state ;  for,  if  Christianity  was  true,  there  was 
that  in  it  which  would  not  yield  to  the  dictation  of 
civil  power ;  and  if  Paganism  was  expiring,  it  would 


138  "LECTUKES    ON   THE 

rouse  its  remaining  strength  to  put  down  the  new  sys 
tem.  This  actually  occurred,  as  might  have  been  an 
ticipated,  and  the  supposition  of  the  truth  of  Christian 
ity  will  account  for  all  the  persecutions  which  attend 
ed  its  early  propagation. 

(11.)  And  once  more:  The  new  religion,  if  it  was 
from  God,  or  if  it  was  believed  to  be  from  God,  would 
make  martyrs,  and  the  supposition  of  its  truth  will 
account  for  all  that  occurred  in  the  history  of  martyr 
dom.  All  that  is  recorded  of  their  patience,  calmness, 
firmness,  tenacity,  obduracy,  OBSTINACY,  if  men  please, 
can  be  accounted  for  if  it  be  supposed  that  the  religion 
was  from  God.  When  Pliny  wrote  to  the  Emperor  Tra 
jan  that,  having  failed  in  the  attempt  to  secure  a  recan 
tation  from  the  accused  Christians,  he  ordered  them  to 
death,  because,  whatever  might  be  their  general  con 
duct,  he  thought  that  such  "  inflexible  obstinacy"  ought 
to  be  punished,  he  was  but  recording  a  fact  that  must 
have  occurred  on  the  supposition  that  Christianity  is 
true.*  The  religion  required  just  such  sacrifices,  and 
just  such  firmness  as  Pliny  described.  It  would  pro 
duce  just  such  calmness,  firmness,  obduracy,  obstinacy, 
among  its  true  friends.  It  would  make  confessors  and 
martyrs.  It  would  produce  just  such  effects  as  were 
actually  produced  in  tens  of  thousands  of  instances  in 
the  attempt  to  propagate  it,  and,  therefore,  the  cause  is 
commensurate  with  the  effect. 

*  "  I  have  taken,"  says  Pliny  to  Trajan,  "this  course  with  all  who 
have  been  brought  before  me  and  have  been  accused  as  Christians. 
Upon  their  confessing  to  me  that  they  were,  I  repeated  the  question 
a  second  and  third  time,  threatening  also  to  punish  them  with  death. 
Such  as  still  persisted  I  ordered  away  to  be  punished ;  for  it  was  no 
doubt  with  me,  whatever  might  be  the  nature  of  their  opinion,  that 
contumacy  and  inflexible  obstinacy  ought  to  be  punished." — Lardner's 
Works,  vii.,  p.  23,  ed.  London,  1829. 


EVIDENCES    OF  CHRISTIANITY.  139 

The  supposition  of  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity, 
therefore,  would  furnish  an  easy  and  natural  solution 
of  all  the  recorded  facts  which  occurred  in  its  propaga 
tion,  alike  in  regard  to  the  great  numbers  that  em 
braced  it,  the  spirit  with  which  it  endowed  them,  and 
the  changes  which  it  made  in  the  world. 

EH.  The  remaining  inquiry  is,  Whether  the  propaga 
tion  of  Christianity  can  be  explained  on  any  other  sup 
position  than  that  it  is  from  God. 

This  inquiry,  to  make  the  argument  complete,  would 
properly  resolve  itself  into  two  parts :  the  question 
whether  the  propagation  of  Christianity  could  be  ex 
plained  on  the  supposition  that  it  is  nQt  from  God ;  and 
the  question  whether  the  other  system  referred  to  in 
the  beginning  of  this  Lecture — the  only  one  that  in  this 
respect  can  come  in  competition  with  it  —  would  not 
furnish  the  same  argument  as  to  a  divine  origin. 

Can  the  propagation  of  Christianity  be  explained  on 
the  supposition  that  it  is  an  imposture  ? 

The  only  labored  attempt  to  show  this  has  been  by 
Mr.  Gibbon,  and  he  has  exhausted  the  subject.  Noth 
ing  has  been  left  to  be  added  by  succeeding  skeptics. 
The  explanation  of  the  remarkable  fects  connected  with 
the  subject  of  Christianity  was  in  Mr.  Gibbon's  path  in 
describing  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
He  could  not  avoid  it ;  and  we  have  no  reason  to  sup 
pose  that  he  wished  to  avoid  it ;  for  when,  in  the  soli 
tude  of  night,  in  the  summer-house  of  his  garden  at 
Lausanne,  he  had  finished  his  work,  and  laid  down  his 
pen,  and  took  several  turns  in  a  covered  walk  of  acacias, 
meditating  on  what  he  had  done,  there  was,  perhaps, 
no  part  of  the  work  on  which  he  would  look  with  more 
satisfaction  than  on  the  chapters  (xv.,  xvi.)  in  which  he 
describes  "  the  progress  of  the  Christian  religion,  and 


140  LECTURES    ON   THE 

the  sentiments,  manners,  numbers,  and  conditions  of  the 
primitive  Christians,"  and  "  the  conduct  of  the  Roman 
government  toward  the  Christians." — Vol.  i.,  p.  249- 
329.* 

He  could  not  avoid  this  inquiry.  The  spread  of 
Christianity  was  too  important  a  fact  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  and  was  too  closely  connected  with  the 
downfall  of  the  empire  to  permit  him  to  pass  it  by ; 
and  though  the  same  facts  might  have  been  recorded 

*  "  It  was  on  the  day,  or  rather  night  of  the  27th  of  Jnne,  1787, 
between  the  hours  of  eleven  and  twelve,  that  I  wrote  the  last  lines 
of  the  last  page,  in  a  summer-house  in  my  garden.  After  laying 
down  my  pen,  I  took  several  turns  in  a  berceau,  or  covered  walk  of 
acacias,  which  commands  a  prospect  of  the  country,  the  lake,  and 
the  mountains.  The  air  was  temperate,  the  sky  was  serene,  the  silver 
orb  of  the  moon  was  reflected  from  the  waters,  and  all  nature  was  si 
lent.  I  will  not  describe  the  first  emotions  of  joy  on  the  recovery  of 
my  freedom,  and  perhaps  the  establishment  of  my  fame,"  etc. — Mis 
cellaneous  Works  of  Edward  Gibbon,  Esq.,  vol.  i.,  p.  170,  ed.  Dublin, 
1796.  In  illustration  of  the  feelings  of  satisfaction  with  which  Mr. 
Gibbon  regarded  these  two  chapters  of  his  History,  I  may  refer  to 
his  remarks  in  his  "Life  and  Writings"  after  those  chapters  had  been 
attacked  by  Mr.  Davies,  of  Oxford,  by  Bishop  Watson,  by  Dr.  Priest 
ley,  Sir  David  Dalrymple,  and  Dr.  White,  of  Oxford.  As  the  result 
of  the  whole,  he  says,  "Had  I  believed  that  the  majority  of  English 
readers  were  so  fondly  attached  to  the  name  and  shadow  of  Chris 
tianity;  had  I  foreseen  that  the  pious,  the  timid,  and  the  prudent 
would  feel,  or  affect  to  feel,  with  such  exquisite  sensibility,  I  might 
perhaps  have  softened  those  invidious  chapters,  which  would  create 
many  enemies,  and  conciliate  few  friends.  But  the  shaft  was  shot, 
the  alarm  was  sounded,  and  I  could  only  rejoice  that,  if  the  voice  of 
our  priests  was  clamorous  and  bitter,  their  hands  were  disarmed  from 
the  powers  of  persecution."  "Let  me  frankly  own  that  I  was  start 
led  at  the  first  discharge  of  ecclesiastical  ordnance ;  but,  as  soon  as  I 
found  that  this  empty  noise  was  mischievous  only  in  the  intention, 
my  fear  was  converted  into  indignation  ;  and  every  feeling  of  indig 
nation  or  curiosity  has  long  since  subsided  in  pure  and  placid  indif 
ference."— Mis.  Works,  vol.  i.,  p.  153,  15G. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  141 

with  another  mode  of  explaining  them,  or  with  no  at 
tempt  to  explain  them,  yet  the  principles  of  Mr.  Gibbon 
would  not  permit  him  to  suggest  the  explanation  that 
it  came  from  God,  and  a  bare  statement  of  the  facts  as 
they  occurred,  with  no  explanation,  would  have  made 
an  impression  on  mankind  which  those  principles  would 
lead  him  to  counteract  if  he  could.  The  diffusion  of 
Christianity  seemed  to  attest  its  divine  origin.  It  was 
an  argument  much  relied  on  by  Christians.  On  the 
mass  of  men  the  manner  of  its  propagation  has  always 
made  a  deep  impression  in  favor  of  its  divine  origin. 
That  the  religion  is  from  God  seems  to  be  the  most  nat 
ural,  philosophical,  and  obvious  explanation  of  the  facts 
in  the  case.  If,  therefore,  it  could  be  shown  that  the 
propagation  of  that  religion  could  be  accounted  for  on 
the  supposition  that  it  is  not  of  God,  or  by  mere  natural 
causes  constantly  in  operation  among  men,  much  might 
be  done  to  loosen  its  hold  on  the  world. 

Mr.  Gibbon  has  done  his  work  well.  No  man  could 
bring  to  the  task  greater  learning,  more  patient  indus 
try,  more  impartial  historical  honesty,  or  more  attract 
ive  eloquence  in  thought  or  in  style.  No  man  surpassed 
him  in  the  knowledge  of  the  vast  lore  treasured  in  an 
cient  libraries,  sacred  and  secular,  that  could  be  made 
to  bear  on  the  subject ;  no  man  has  ever  equaled  him 
in  understanding  the  power  of  a  sneer.  The  argument, 
as  he  pursued  it,  is  complete.  No  one  will  add  to  it ; 
no  one  will  improve  it. 

The  points  on  which  Mr.  Gibbon  relies  in  the  expla 
nation  of  the  "  Progress  of  the  Christian  Religion"  are 
five  in  number :  "  The  inflexible,  and,  if  we  may  use  the 
expression,  the  intolerant  zeal  of  the  Christians,  derived, 
it  is  true,  from  the  Jewish  religion,  but  purified  from 
the  narrow  and  unsocial  spirit  which,  instead  of  invit- 


142  LECTURES    ON   THE 

ing,  had  deterred  the  Gentiles  from  embracing  the  law 
of  Moses."  "The  doctrine  of  a  future  life,  improved  by 
every  additional  circumstance  which  could  give  weight 
and  efficacy  to  that  important  truth."  "The  miracu 
lous  powers  ascribed  to  the  primitive  Church."  "  The 
pure  and  austere  morals  of  Christians."  "  The  union 
and  discipline  of  the  Christian  republic,  which  gradu 
ally  formed  an  independent  and  increasing  state  in  the 
heart  of  the  Roman  empire." 

This  is  all.  But  I  need  not  say  that  the  force  of 
these  considerations  is  not  seen  by  the  mere  announce 
ment  of  their  titles.  It  could  only  be  seen  in  view  of 
the  very  elaborate  and  ingenious  argument  with  which 
these  principles  are  illustrated. 

Of  course  I  could  not,  in  the  task  assigned  me,  go 
into  an  examination  of  this  argument,  and  you  would 
not  thank  me  for  undertaking  it.  The  world  under 
stands  it,  as  the  world  understands  the  argument  of 
Mr.  Hume  against  miracles,  that,  however  it  is  to  be 
met  or  explained,  it  is  not  an  argument  to  be  greatly 
relied  on  by  infidelity.  The  progress  of  Christianity  in 
the  world  has  not  been  perceptibly  impeded  by  either ; 
and  the  number  of  those  influenced  by  either  argument 
is  small,  mostly  among  those  in  early  life,  and  to  a  great 
extent,  if  not  entirely,  those  who  were  skeptics  before. 
If  a  personal  allusion  may  be  allowed,  I  may  be  permit 
ted  to  say  that  this  was  precisely  the  effect  nearly  fifty 
years  ago  on  my  own  mind. 

Some  very  general  remarks  on  the  reasons  thus  as 
signed  for  the  propagation  of  Christianity  may,  how 
ever,  not  be  unprofitable  or  improper. 

(a)  It  is  now  to  be  admitted — it  would  be  conceded 
universally — that  these  are  all  the  causes  that  can  be 
assigned  for  the  propagation  of  Christianity  on  the  sup- 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  143 

position  that  the  religion  is  on  the  same  level  with 
Mohammedism,  or  is  false.  No  one  has  attempted  to 
add  to  this  argument ;  no  one  would  be  likely  to  at 
tempt  it.  Mr.  Gibbon  exhausted  the  subject.  It  was 
to  be  presumed  that  he  would  state  all  the  arguments 
which  would  occur  to  him,  and  it  is  certain  that  no  ar 
guments  likely  to  bear  on  the  subject  would  escape  him. 
Infidelity  can  do  no  more  in  this  argument,  and  the  ar 
gument  is  complete. 

"  Si  Pergama  dextra 
Defend!  possent,  etiam  hac  defensa  fuissent." 

Mn.  ii.,  291,  292. 

There  are  no  more  arguments  to  be  added  to  these. 
Historical  research  will  add  no  more.  German  ration 
alism  will  add  no  more,  and  the  warfare  is  transferred 
to  other  fields. 

(5)  It  can  not  be  denied  that  Mr.  Gibbon  has,  in  these 
statements,  rendered  an  involuntary  tribute  of  great 
value  to  Christianity,  and  has  conceded  much  that  may 
be  referred  to  as  an  actual,  though  an  indirect  proof  of 
its  divine  origin.  It  was  much  that  the  necessities  of 
the  case,  and  the  claims  of  honest  and  impartial  history, 
should  extort  from  such  af  man,  and  in  such  connec 
tions,  the  concessions  made  in  regard  to  the  system ;  it 
is  much  that  Christianity  had  laid  the  foundation  for 
such  an  argument  —  an  argument  which  Mr.  Gibbon 
could  not  have  urged  in  explanation  of  the  continued 
prevalence  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  mythology  in  the 
world,  or  in  explanation  of  the  propagation  of  the  Mo 
hammedan  system.  It  was  much  that  he  could  refer, 
and  was  constrained  to  refer,  to  "  the  zeal  of  the  early 
Christians ;"  to  "  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life,  improved 
by  every  additional  circumstance  which  could  give 
weight  and  efficacy  to  that  important  truth ;"  to  "  the 


144  LECTURES    ON   THE 

pure  and  austere  morals  of  Christians ;"  and  this,  with 
what  was  implied  in  the  very  nature  of  the  argument, 
and  what  is,  in  fact,  conceded,  that  these  things  were 
not  found  in  the  ancient  systems  of  religion ;  that  pa 
ganism —  human  wisdom  and  philosophy  —  had  never 
originated  these  things  so  as  to  give  permanency  to 
the  ancient  systems  of  religion,  or  to  secure  their  prop 
agation  in  the  world.  "  The  general  system  of  their 
mythology,"  says  he  (vol.  i.,  p.  260),  "  was  unsupported 
by  any  solid  proofs,  and  the  wisest  among  the  Pagans 
had  already  disclaimed  its  usurped  authority.  The  doc 
trine  of  a  future  state  was  scarcely  considered,  among 
the  devout  polytheists  of  Greece  and  Rome,  as  a  funda 
mental  article  of  faith."  "  The  first  book  of  the  Tusculan 
Questions,"  says  he, "  and  the  Treatise  De  Senectute,  and 
the  Somnium  Scipionis,  contain,  in  the  -most  beautiful 
language,  every  thing  that  Grecian  philosophy  or  Roman 
good  sense  could  possibly  suggest  on  this  dark  subject ;" 
and,  as  the  result,  he  adds, "  The  writings  of  Cicero  rep 
resent  in  the  most  lively  colors  the  ignorance,  the  er 
rors,  and  the  uncertainty  of  the  ancient  philosophers 
with  regard  to  the  immort|lity  of  the  soul"  (vol.  i.,p. 
259). 

The  impression,  in  fact,  made  on  the  mind  of  Cicero 
himself  by  the  ablest  argument  that  philosophy  has 
ever  furnished  for  the  immortality  of  the  soul — that  in 
the  Gorgias — is  thus  expressed  in  his  own  language,  in 
a  passage  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  quote  again : 
"  I  know  not  how  it  is  that  when  I  read  I  assent ;  but 
when  I  lay  down  the  book,  and  begin,  by  myself,  to 
think  of  the  immortality  of  souls,  all  my  assent  glides 
away."* 

*  Marcus.  Num  eloquentiuPlatonem  superare  possumus?  Evolve 
diligenter  ejus  eum  librum,  qui  est  de  animo :  amplius  quod  desideres, 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  145 

It  is  natural  and  proper  now  to  ask  whence  had  the 
Author  of  Christianity  these  views  which  commended 
his  religion  to  the  world,  securing  its  propagation,  and 
displacing  all  the  results  of  human  wisdom  ?  Whence 
sprang  these  "  pure  and  austere  morals,"  so  unlike  what 
prevailed  under  the  best  forms  of  the  Pagan  religion, 
so  superior  to  any  of  the  systems  of  philosophers?  Let 
it  be  supposed  that  Christianity  is  from  God,  and  all 
this  is  plain.  What  will  make  it  plain  on  any  other 
supposition  ? 

(c)  It  is  to  be  admitted  by  us  that  Mr.  Gibbon  is  right 
in  the  statement  of  the  historical  fact  that  these  things 
did  contribute  materially  to  the  spread  of  Christianity, 
for  in  embracing  it  men  gave  their  assent  to  the  fact  that 
these  things  were  so ;  they  embraced  it,  among  other 
reasons,  because  they  believed  that  these  things  were  so. 
They  saw  in  these  truths  and  results  such  a  religion  as 
man  needs ;  they  saw  what  was  not  to  be  found  in  any 
other  system ;  they  saw,  or  thought  they  saw  in  these 
things  proof  that  a  religion  so  pure,  a  religion  that 
prompted  to  such  zeal  for  the  good  of  man,  a  religion 
which  revealed  the  doctrine  of  immortality,  must  be 
from  God.     Were  they  far  from  truth  and  nature  in 
such  a  supposition  ? 

(d)  In  considering  the  question  whether  these  causes 
alone  would  explain  the  facts  of  the  propagation  of 
Christianity,  let  it  now  be  supposed  that  the  system 
was  false;  that  it  was  based  on  imposture  and  delu 
sion  ;  that  Jesus  never  existed,  or  that  he  was  an  en 
thusiast,  or  that  he  was  an  impostor,  or  that  his  apos- 

nihil  erit.  Auditor.  Feci,  mehevcule,  et  quidem  saepius :  sed  nes- 
cio  quo  modo,  dum  lego,  assentior ;  cum  posui  librum,  et  mecum  ipse 
de  immortalite  animorum  coepi  cogitare,  assentio  omnis  ilia  elabitur. 
— Tusc.  Quaest.,  lib.  i.,  c.  ii. 

G 


146  LECTURES    ON   THE 

ties  contrived  the  system  with  an  intention  to  impose 
on  the  world ;  that  no  miracles  were  wrought ;  that 
Christ  was  not  raised  from  the  dead;  that  all  this  oc 
curred  in  the  most  intellectual  age  of  past  time,  when 
the  light  of  philosophy  had  just  culminated  in  Greece 
and  in  Rome,  and  before  the  long  night  settled  down 
on  Europe  in  the  Dark  Ages ;  when  of  all  ages  it  would 
have  been  most  easy  to  detect  an  imposture — and  the 
problem  then  would  be,  how  could  such  a  religion,  un 
der  such  apostles,  and  in  such  an  age,  accomplish  these 
things  ?  How  could  it  overthrow  the  ancient  systems 
of  mythology ;  set  aside  the  ancient  laws  ;  change  long- 
established  customs ;  render  meaningless  and  void  the 
ancient  sacrifices;  disrobe  an  established  priesthood; 
throw  down  ancient  altars;  overcome  the  corrupt  and 
evil  passions  of  men ;  go  into  the  scenes  of  domestic 
life,  and  transform  all  around  the  fireside :  how  could 
it  remove  Penates  and  Lares,  and  set  up  a  Christian 
altar  in  their  place ;  lead  men  to  abandon  sins  long  in 
dulged,  and  to  call  things  sinful  which  before  were  re 
garded  as  innocent;  transform  pollution  to  godly  liv 
ing,  and  lift  up  the  degraded  to  a  life  of  pure  devotion 
and  self-sacrifice,  and  of  such  men  make  martyrs  f  Yes, 
make  martyrs,  for  this  it  did  by  tens  of  thousands — the 
young,  the  aged;  the  rich,  the  poor;  the  refined,  the 
uncultivated ;  the  master,  the  slave ;  the  man  who  had 
been  a  philosopher,  and  the  tender  and  delicate  female 
reared  in  luxury,  and  accustomed  to  the  gayety  and 
the  splendors  of  the  court. 

This  is  the  problem;  and  the  reasons  assigned  will 
not,  do  not  explain  this.  The  mind  is  conscious  of  a 
sad  vacancy  when  these  facts  are  before  it,  and  these 
reasons  are  assigned  for  those  facts.  It  wants  more  ;  it 
must  have  more. 


EVIDENCES    OF  CHRISTIANITY.  147 

But  add  now  the  idea  that  all  this  was  true — that 
things  were  as  they  are  stated  in  the  New  Testament — 
and  we  have  a  cause  that  is  commensurate  with  the  ef 
fect,  that  settles  all  doubts,  that  makes  all  things  plain. 

And  shall  we  now  compare  this  system  and  these 
facts  with  that  other  system  which  infidelity  would 
make  parallel  with  this,  and  whose  propagation  the  un 
believers  would  explain  on  the  same  principles — the 
system  of  Mohammed  ? 

Well  was  it,  though  perhaps  he  was  unconscious  of 
the  reason  why  it  was  so,  that  Mr.  Gibbon  did  not  at: 
tempt  elaborately,  as  in  the  case  of  Christianity,  to  ex 
plain  the  causes  of  the  rapid  diffusion  of  that  system. 
Those  causes  are  patent  on  the  face  of  the  system  and 
on  the  face  of  history.  Yet  Mr.  Gibbon  has,  as  in  the 
case  of  Christianity,  narrated  with  great  exactness  and 
fidelity  the  origin,  the  slow  growth  at  first,  the  subse 
quent  triumphs,  and  the  influence  of  that  system,  as  no 
other  man  has  done  or  could  do.  But  he  has  not  ven 
tured  to  suggest  that  its  propagation  might  demon 
strate  that  it  was  of  divine  origin,  for  that  might  have 
suggested  a  stronger  argument  for  the  propagation  of 
the  other  system ;  he  has  not  thought  it  necessary,  as 
in  the  case  of  Christianity,  to  attempt  an  explanation 
of  the  causes  of  its  diffusion,  for  that  explanation,  easy, 
natural,  and  satisfactory  as  it  must  have  been,  might 
have  appeared  too  much  in  contrast  with  the  explana 
tion  of  the  causes  of  the  spread  of  Christianity,  and,  in 
thus  accounting  for  the  one,  might  have  suggested  to 
men  that  there  was  some  sophistry  in  the  explanation 
of  the  other. 

But  can  the  spread  of  Mohammedism  be  explained 
except  on  the  supposition  that  it  is  from  God  ?  Has 
any  historian  ever  found  any  difficulty  on  that  subject, 


148  LECTUKES    ON   THE 

or  even  felt  himself  embarrassed  in  regard  to  such  an 
explanation  ?  Is  it  more  difficult  than  the  explanation 
of  the  conquests  of  Caasar  or  Alexander  ?  If  you  add 
to  the  idea  of  conquest — of  the  triumphs  of  arms  which 
you  have  in  the  conquests  of  Caesar  and  Alexander — 
the  idea  that  Mohammedism  is  a  religion,  and,  there 
fore,  meets  one  of  the  wants  of  mankind ;  that  it  af 
firms  the  doctrine  that  there  is  one  God,  and,  therefore, 
in  this  respect,  meets  the  highest  wants  of  men ;  that 
it  makes  provision  for  the  indulgence  of  some  of  the 
most  powerful  passions  that  rule  in  the  human  soul; 
that  it  makes  prominent  as  an  attraction  the  prom 
ise  of  sensual  delights  alike  in  this  world  and  the 
world  to  come ;  that  it  imposes  few  restraints  on  the 
passions,  and  those  only  that  are  most  easily  evaded ; 
that  it  falls  in,  in  the  main,  with  the  whole  course  and 
tendency  of  human  nature,  and  blends  these  indul 
gences  with  religion,  and  makes  them  part  of  the  re 
ligion  itself — if  these  things  are  before  the  mind,  is 
it  difficult  to  explain  the  spread  and  the  permanen 
cy  of  the  system  ?  How  different  from  a  system  of 
poverty,  and  humility,  and  self-denial ;  a  system  with 
nothing  of  military  glory ;  a  system  originated  not  by 
one  who  was  a  splendid  conqueror,  but  by  one  who 
was  poor  and  despised,  and  was  crucified  between  mal 
efactors  ;  a  system  going  forth  not  under  the  blazonry 
of  banners  of  conquest,  but  as  if  one  should  make  the 
image  of  the  gallows  an  emblem  of  his  religion  —  for 
the  cross  was  then  more  ignominious  than  the  gal 
lows  is  now ;  a  system  which  required  a  renovated 
heart,  and  the  renunciation  of  the  passions,  and  a  pure 
life !  How  different  these  two  as  making  an  appeal  to 
mankind  !  In  the  language  of  another,  "  The  enthusi 
asm  by  which  Mohammedism  conquered  the  world  was 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  149 

mainly  a  military  enthusiasm.  Men  were  drawn  to  it 
at  once,  and  without  conditions,  by  the  splendor  of  the 
achievements  of  its  disciples,  and  it  declared  an  abso 
lute  war  against  all  the  religions  it  encountered.  Its 
history,  therefore,  exhibits  nothing  of  the  process  of 
gradual  absorption,  persuasion,  compromise,  and  assim 
ilation  that  was  exhibited  in  the  dealings  of  Christian 
ity  with  barbarians."  And  again :  "  One  of  the  great 
characteristics  of  the  Koran  is  the  extreme  care  and 
skill  with  which  it  labors  to  assist  men  in  realizing 
the  unseen.  Descriptions  the  most  minutely  detailed, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  the  most  vivid,  are  mingled  with 
powerful  appeals  to  those  sensual  passions  by  which 
the  imagination  in  all  countries,  but  especially  those  in 
Avhich  Mohammedism  has  taken  root,  is  most  forcibly 
influenced."* 

When  we  remember  these  things,  and  when  we  re 
member,  "  as  modern  criticism  has  shown  from  the  state 
of  the  Arab  mind  and  character  in  the  period  antece 
dent  to  the  coming  of  Mohammed,  that  the  race  was 
fully  prepared  for  its  mission  as  soon  as  some  principle 
should  unite  in  one  nationality  the  struggling  and  di 
vided  tribes  of  the  Peninsula,"  it  is  not  difficult  to  ex 
plain  "  the  rapid  expansion  of  the  power  of  that  re 
ligion,  the  brilliant  and  fugitive  bloom  of  civilization 
which  embellished  the  dominion  of  the  Arabs,"  without 
the  supposition  that  it  was  from  God.f 

*  Lecky,  Hist,  of  Rationalism,  i.,  235. 

t  Edinbnrg  Review,  vol.  cxxiv.,  1.  The  literature  on  this  subject, 
in  order  to  a  full  understanding  of  the  causes  of  the  rise  and  decline 
of  this  extraordinary  power,  may  be  found  in  the  following  works : 
Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  chs.  1.,  li.,  vol.  iii.,  p. 
3GO-460.  Mohammed  der  Prophet,  sein  Leben  und  seine  Lehre,  von 
Gustav  Weil,  Stuttgardt,  1844.  Life  of  Mahomet,  and  History  of  Is 
lam  to  the  Era  of  the  Hegira,  by  William  Muir,  4  vols.,  London,  1861. 


150  LECTURES    ON   THE 

The  Mohammedan  religion  was  in  the  line  of  human 
nature ;  was  in  accordance  with  a  previous  state  of  the 
public  mind;  was  under  the  guidance  of  an  eminent 
military  chieftain  and  his  not  less  illustrious  successor ; 
was  connected  with  the  founding  of  a  mighty  empire 
— it  appealed  to  the  most  powerful  passions  of  men,  and 
yet,  at  the  same  time,  gave  to  men  what  they  pant  for — 
a  god,  a  religion,  a  hope  of  immortality — and  immortal 
ity,  in  its  case,  which  was  of  all  things  most  gratifying, 
a  prolongation  forever  of  the  pleasures  of  sense.  How 
different  from  the  Christian  scheme ! 

Mohammedism  rose,  and  spread,  and  nourished  as 
a  religion  constructed  with  eminent  ability,  and  sus 
tained  by  military  power,  and  the  love  of  national 
glory;  it  is  decaying  and  falling  as  a  false  religion 
must  do,  not  keeping  up  with  the  progress  and  wants 
of  the  world ;  Christianity,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter, 
becomes  more  extended  and  wide-spread  in  its  power 
and  influences  as  the  world  advances  in  civilization, 
science,  and  the  arts,  and  is  the  only  system  of  religion 
that  has  any  promise,  in  itself,  of  spreading  over  the 
nations,  and  of  enduring  to  the  end  of  human  affairs. 

Das  Leben  und  die  Lehre  des  Mohammed's,  von  Adolf  Sprenger,  3 
vols.,  Berlin,  1855-18G5. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  151 


LECTURE  V. 

MIRACLES:   THE   EVIDENCE   IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CEN 
TURY  THAT  THEY  WERE  PERFORMED  IN  THE   FIRST. 

I  PROPOSE,  in  this  Lecture,  to  consider  the  evidence 
in  favor  of  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity  as  derived 
from  miracles.  The  particular  point  which  I  shall  have 
in  view  is  the  evidence  as  it  exists  in  the  nineteenth 
century  that  miracles  were  performed  in  the  first,  or  as 
the  evidence  appeals  to  the  men  of  this  generation. 
The  remarks  will  have  reference  to  the  argument  in  the 
present  age  of  the  world,  and  in  view  of  the  objections 
which  may  be  urged  by  those  who  deny  the  divine 
origin  of  Christianity  as  derived  from  the  present  state 
of  science,  and  from  the  great  changes  which  have  oc 
curred  in  the  minds  of  men  on  the  stability  of  the  laws 
of  nature  now  after  the  lapse  of  eighteen  hundred  years 
since  Christianity  was  introduced,  and  on  the  whole 
subject  of  supernatural  interferences  and  agencies.  It 
is  evident  that  the  state  of  the  argument  must  be  some 
what  different  from  what  it  was  when  Christianity  was 
first  proclaimed,  and  that  it  would  have  been  compara 
tively  easy  to  convince  men  of  the  reality  of  such  su 
pernatural  interferences  as  those  on  which  Christianity 
is  based  at  a  time  when  the  belief  in  such  interferences 
was  almost  universal.  There  has  been  a  growing  con 
fidence,  as  science  has  advanced,  in  the  fixedness  of  the 
laws  of  nature,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  the  confidence 
in  the  fixedness  and  stability  of  those  laws  might  be 
come  so  strong  as  to  lead  men  to  adopt  it  as  a  maxim 


"     --_•---    -.     -  u-  -_L. 


15G  LECTURES    ON   THE 

— such  a  testimony  we  assert  they  have.  It  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  their  impossibility  ;  an  impossibil 
ity  to  be  established  on  scientific  grounds,  such  as 
no  reasonable  man  would  reject  in  any  other  case  — 
grounds  such  as  those  on  which  we  believe  that  the 
earth  goes  round  the  sun,  or  that  chemical  elements 
combine  in  definite  proportions.  In  this  point  of  view 
the  argument  is  altogether  of  a  general  character,  and 
is  unaffected  by  any  peculiarities  of  probability  or  tes 
timony  which  may  distinguish  one  miraculous  narra 
tive  from  another.  If  the  progress  of  physical  or  met 
aphysical  science  has  shown  beyond  the  possibility  of 
reasonable  doubt  that  miracles  are  impossible ;  if,  as 
seems  to  be  the  tendency  of  a  recent  argument,  the  as 
sertion  of  a  miracle  is  now  known  to  be  as  absurd  as 
the  assertion  that  two  and  two  make  five,*  it  is  idle  to 
attempt  a  comparison  between  greater  or  less  degrees 
of  probability  or  testimony."! 

In  this  connection,  as  showing  what  is  the  state  of 
one  class  of  minds  on  this  subject,  and  perhaps  as  rep 
resenting  in  fact  more  than  would  be  willing  to  avow 
it,  I  may  copy  a  remark  and  an  illustration  of  Renan 
which  I  have  before  quoted  (Life  of  Jesus,  p.  43,  44, 
45)  :  "  None  of  the  miracles,"  says  he,  "  with  which  an 
cient  histories  are  filled,  occurred  under  scientific  condi 
tions.  Observation,  never  once  contradicted,  teaches  us 
that  miracles  occur  only  in  periods  and  countries  in 
which  they  are  believed  in,  and  before  persons  disposed 
to  believe  them.  No  miracle  was  ever  performed  be 
fore  an  assembly  of  men  capable  of  establishing  the 
miraculous  character  of  an  act.  Neither  men  of  the 
people  nor  men  of  the  world  are  competent  for  that. 
Great  precautions  and  a  long  habit  of  scientific  research 
are  requisite. 

*  Essays  and  Review?,  p.  141.  t  Aids  to  Faith,  p.  10. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  157 

"  We  do  not  say,"  he  adds,  in  a  passage  which  I  have 
quoted  before, "  miracle  is  impossible ;  we  say  hitherto 
there  has  been  none  proved.  Let  a  thaumaturgist  pre 
sent  himself  to-morrow  with  testimony  sufficiently  im 
portant  to  merit  our  attention ;  let  him  announce  that 
he  is  able,  I  will  suppose,  to  raise  the  dead,  what  would 
be  done  ?  A  commission  composed  of  physiologists, 
physicians,  chemists,  persons  experienced  in  historical 
criticism,  would  be  appointed.  This  commission  would 
choose  the  corpse,  make  certain  that  death  was  real, 
designate  the  hall  in  which  the  experiment  should  be 
made,  and  regulate  the  whole  system  of  precautions 
necessary  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt.  If,  under  such 
conditions,  the  resurrection  should  be  performed,  a  prob 
ability  almost  equal  to  certainty  would  be  attained. 
However,  as  an  experiment  ought  always  to  be  capable 
of  being  repeated,  as  one  ought  to  be  capable  of  doing 
again  what  one  has  done  once,  and  as  in  the  matter  of 
miracles  there  can  be  no  question  of  easy  or  difficult, 
the  thaumaturgist  would  be  invited  to  reproduce  his 
marvelous  act  under  other  circumstances,  upon  other 
bodies,  in  another  medium.  If  the  miracle  succeeds 
each  time,  two  things  would  be  proven :  first,  that  su 
pernatural  acts  do  come  to  pass  in  the  world ;  second, 
the  power  to  perform  them  belongs  or  is  delegated  to 
certain  persons.  But  who  does  not  see  that  no  miracle 
was  ever  performed  under  such  conditions ;  that  always 
hitherto  the  thaumaturgist  has  chosen  the  subject  of 
the  experiment,  chosen  the  means,  chosen  the  public ; 
that,  moreover,  it  is,  in  most  cases,  the  people  them 
selves  who,  from  the  undeniable  need  which  they  feel  of 
seeing  in  great  events  and  in  great  men  something  di 
vine,  create  the  marvelous  legends  afterward." 

Such  are  some  of  the  feelings  and  views  which  the 


156  LECTURES    ON   THE 

— such  a  testimony  we  assert  they  have.  It  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  their  impossibility  ;  an  impossibil 
ity  to  be  established  on  scientific  grounds,  such  as 
no  reasonable  man  would  reject  in  any  other  case  — 
grounds  such  as  those  on  which  we  believe  that  the 
earth  goes  round  the  sun,  or  that  chemical  elements 
combine  in  definite  proportions.  In  this  point  of  view 
the  argument  is  altogether  of  a  general  character,  and 
is  unaffected  by  any  peculiarities  of  probability  or  tes 
timony  which  may  distinguish  one  miraculous  narra 
tive  from  another.  If  the  progress  of  physical  or  met 
aphysical  science  has  shown  beyond  the  possibility  of 
reasonable  doubt  that  miracles  are  impossible;  if,  as 
seems  to  be  the  tendency  of  a  recent  argument,  the  as 
sertion  of  a  miracle  is  now  known  to  be  as  absurd  as 
the  assertion  that  two  and  two  make  five,*  it  is  idle  to 
attempt  a  comparison  between  greater  or  less  degrees 
of  probability  or  testimony. "f 

In  this  connection,  as  showing  what  is  the  state  of 
one  class  of  minds  on  this  subject,  and  perhaps  as  rep 
resenting  in  fact  more  than  would  be  willing  to  avow 
it,  I  may  copy  a  remark  and  an  illustration  of  Renan 
which  I  have  before  quoted  (Life  of  Jesus,  p.  43,  44, 
45)  :  "  None  of  the  miracles,"  says  he,  "  with  which  an 
cient  histories  are  filled,  occurred  under  scientific  condi 
tions.  Observation,  never  once  contradicted,  teaches  us 
that  rniracles  occur  only  in  periods  and  countries  in 
which  they  are  believed  in,  and  before  persons  disposed 
to  believe  them.  No  miracle  was  ever  performed  be 
fore  an  assembly  of  men  capable  of  establishing  the 
miraculous  character  of  an  act.  Neither  men  of  the 
people  nor  men  of  the  world  are  competent  for  that. 
Great  precautions  and  a  long  habit  of  scientific  research 
are  requisite. 

*  Essnys  and  Review?,  p.  141.  t  Aids  to  Faith,  p.  10. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  157 

"  We  do  not  say,"  he  adds,  in  a  passage  which  I  have 
quoted  before, "  miracle  is  impossible ;  we  say  hitherto 
there  has  been  none  proved.  Let  a  thaumaturgist  pre 
sent  himself  to-morrow  with  testimony  sufficiently  im 
portant  to  merit  our  attention ;  let  him  announce  that 
he  is  able,  I  will  suppose,  to  raise  the  dead,  what  would 
be  done  ?  A  commission  composed  of  physiologists, 
physicians,  chemists,  persons  experienced  in  historical 
criticism,  would  be  appointed.  This  commission  would 
choose  the  corpse,  make  certain  that  death  was  real, 
designate  the  hall  in  which  the  experiment  should  be 
made,  and  regulate  the  whole  system  of  precautions 
necessary  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt.  If,  under  such 
conditions,  the  resurrection  should  be  performed,  a  prob 
ability  almost  equal  to  certainty  would  be  attained. 
However,  as  an  experiment  ought  always  to  be  capable 
of  being  repeated,  as  one  ought  to  be  capable  of  doing 
again  what  one  has  done  once,  and  as  in  the  matter  of 
miracles  there  can  be  no  question  of  easy  or  difficult, 
the  thaumaturgist  would  be  invited  to  reproduce  his 
marvelous  act  under  other  circumstances,  upon  other 
bodies,  in  another  medium.  If  the  miracle  succeeds 
each  time,  two  things  would  be  proven :  first,  that  su 
pernatural  acts  do  come  to  pass  in  the  world ;  second, 
the  power  to  perform  them  belongs  or  is  delegated  to 
certain  persons.  But  who  does  not  see  that  no  miracle 
was  ever  performed  under  such  conditions ;  that  always 
hitherto  the  thaumaturgist  has  chosen  the  subject  of 
the  experiment,  chosen  the  means,  chosen  the  public ; 
that,  moreover,  it  is,  in  most  cases,  the  people  them 
selves  who,  from  the  undeniable  need  which  they  feel  of 
seeing  in  great  events  and  in  great  men  something  di 
vine,  create  the  marvelous  legends  afterward." 

Such  are  some  of  the  feelings  and  views  which  the 


158  LECTURES    ON    THE 

defenders  of  miracles  are  to  meet  in  the  nineteenth 
century. 

It  is  important,  then,  to  remark  here  that  Christian 
ity  is  founded  on  a  belief  of  the  possibility  and  the  real 
ity  of  miracles,  and  on  the  belief  that  it  is  possible  to 
establish  the  fact  that  they  have  occurred  by  testimony, 
as  firmly  as  testimony  can  establish  any  other  fact — 
that  is,  so  as  to  make  this  the  basis  of  faith  and  of  ac 
tion  in  our  highest  interests.  No  one  who  receives  any 
thing  on  the  ground  of  testimony  can  doubt  that  Christ 
claimed  the  power  of  working  true  miracles,  as  a  proof 
that  he  came  from  God.  "  That  ye  may  know  that  the 
Son  of  Man  hath  power  upon  earth  to  forgive  sins,  I  say 
unto  thee,  Arise,  and  take  up  thy  couch,  and  go  into 
thine  house." — Luke,  v.,  24.  "If  I  with  the  finger  of 
God  cast  out  devils,  no  doubt  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
come  upon  you." — Luke,  xi.,  20. 

No  one  can  doubt,  also,  that  as  Jesus  claimed  the 
power  of  working  miracles,  and  appealed  to  them  as 
proof  of  his  divine  mission,  so  his  disciples  believed 
that  he  actually  did  work  miracles,  and  went  forth  to 
propagate  his  religion  on  that  ground. 

Still  farther,  no  one  can  doubt,  as  I  showed  in  the 
last  Lecture,  that  Christianity  was  propagated  on  that 
ground,  and  that  the  belief  that  it  was  sustained  by 
miraculous  or  supernatural  agency  was  one  of  the  main 
reasons  why  it  was  embraced  at  all,  and  why  it  made 
so  rapid  progress  in  the  world. 

In  like  manner,  no  one  can  doubt  that  the  apostles 
claimed  the  same  power,  and  that  it  was,  also,  on  the 
belief  that  they  had  the  power  miraculously  of  speak 
ing  foreign  languages,  of  healing  the  sick,  and  of  rais 
ing  the  dead,  that  they  spread  the  religion  abroad 
among  the  nations. 


EVIDENCES    OP    CHRISTIANITY.  159 

No  man  can  explain  the  things  referred  to  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  claimed  to  be  miracles,  on  any  princi 
ples  of  optical  illusion,  of  jugglery,  of  deception,  of 
sleight  of  hand,  of  superior  knowledge  of  physical  laws, 
of  an  acquaintance  with  the  secret  powers  of  nature. 
Many  things  that  were  once  regarded  as  miracles  may 
be  thus  explained ;  many  things  once  reckoned  among 
the  works  of  "  magic,"  or  that  were  regarded  as  super 
natural,  have  been  explained  on  principles  of  science, 
by  Sir  David  Brewster,  in  his  work  on  "  Magic  ;"  many 
of  the  tricks  of  jugglers,  that  may  be  above  our  power 
to  explain  them,  are  yet  of  easy  explanation;  many 
things  may  be  produced  in  the  laboratory  of  the  chem 
ist  which  may  seem  to  be  miraculous  to  the  unlearned, 
but  which  are  plain  to  the  chemist  himself;  and  many 
of  the  things  relied  on  by  impostors  as  proofs  that  they 
were  from  God,  can  be  now  easily  explained.  But  the 
miracles  of  the  New  Testament  can  not  thus  be  explain 
ed.  Renan  has  indeed  attempted  to  explain  the  heal 
ing  of  Peter's  wife's  mother,  and  the  resurrection  of 
Lazarus,  and  the  alleged  resurrection  of  Jesus,  but  the 
world  will  not  accept  such  explanations.  If  the  facts 
occurred,  they  are  above  the  operations  of  any  laws  of 
nature.  If  the  lame  were  made  to  walk ;  if  the  lepers 
were  cleansed ;  if  the  eyes  of  the  blind  were  opened ;  if 
diseases  departed  by  a  word;  if  the  dead  were  restored 
to  life,  these  things  are  above  any  natural  laws,  and  the 
world  will  hold  the  whole  to  be  deceit  and  imposture, 
or  will  believe  that  they  were  real  miracles,  that  is, 
events  where  the  only  antecedent  was  the  will  and  the 
power  of  God. 

Whether  Christianity  could  or  could  not  have  been 
originally  propagated,  as  it  is  now  to  be  kept  up  in  the 
world,  without  miraculous  agency,  might  be  a  fair  ques- 


160  LECTURES    ON   THE 

tion  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  the  experiment  was  not  thus 
made,  and  that  it  was  not  thus  propagated.  The  infidel 
must  concede,  at  least,  that  it  was,  in  fact,  propagated 
on  the  belief  that  Christ  really  performed  miracles,  and 
that  he  himself  was  actually  raised  from  the  dead. 

At  this  stage  of  the  argument,  therefore,  the  follow 
ing  points  of  statement  and  inquiry  occur  : 

(1.)  Is  a  miracle  possible,  that  is,  in  the  form  in  which 
the  question  must  come  before  us,  not,  whether,  suppos 
ing  that  there  is  a  God — a  being  of  almighty  power  who 
has  framed  and  established  the  laws  of  nature — he  could 
set  aside  his  laws,  and  himself  work  without  them,  for 
no  rational  man  could  doubt  that ;  but  whether  there 
is  by  fate,  or  physical  necessity,  or  otherwise,  any  such 
ascertained  fixedness  and  stability  of  the  laws  of  nature 
that  it  can  not  be  believed  that  they  would  ever  be  set 
aside  by  the  introduction  of  a  higher  power  working 
without  reference  to  them  ? 

(2.)  Is  it  possible  to  establish  the  fact  if  a  miracle 
has  been  wrought  ?  Can  there  be  evidence  which  will 
properly  set  aside  the  presumption  of  the  absolute  uni 
formity  of  the  laws  of  nature,  as  derived  from  experi 
ence,  or  the  study  of  those  laws,  or  from  any  other 
cause,  that  this  has  actually  been  done  ?  Is  it  not  much 
more  probable  that  men  have  been  deceived,  or  have 
been  imposed  upon,  than  that  those  laws  have  been  set 
aside  for  any  purpose  ?  Has  not  the  world  been  full  of 
instances  where  testimony  was  false;  have  there  been 
any  corresponding  instances  or  facts  in  the  way  in 
which  the  affairs  of  the  world  are  actually  managed, 
that  might  be  considered  as  parallel  to  this,  or  that 
might  be  equally  regarded  as  a  departure  from  fixed 
and  regular  laws  ? 

(3.)  Is  -the  evidence  adduced,  even  if  a  miracle  has 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  161 

been  wrought,  such  as  the  case  would  require  ;  such  as 
the  world  might  demand ;  such  as  would  properly  sat 
isfy  a  man  accustomed  to  reason  on  scientific  principles ; 
such  as  a  geologist  or  astronomer  would  admit  in  re 
gard  to  the  condition  of  the  earth  in  former  ages,  or  the 
recorded  phenomena  of  the  heavenly  bodies  ?  Is  the 
evidence  such  that  it  ought  to  convince  us  ?  Does  the 
strength  of  the  testimony  at  all  correspond  with  the 
unusual  and  the  improbable  nature  of  the  fact?  May 
it  not  be  demanded  that  the  testimony  shall  be  such  as 
would  correspond  with  the  unusual  and  improbable  na 
ture  of  the  fact ;  that,  as  there  is  the  strongest  presump 
tion  against  the  miracle,  so  the  testimony  ought  to  be 
not  merely  that  which  would  establish  an  ordinary 
event,  but  such  as  would  overcome  this  presumption 
against  it  ? 

(4.)  A  more  material  and  important  question  still  is, 
Whether  there  is  any  stronger  evidence  in  favor  of  mira 
cles  than  there  is  in  favor  of  witchcraft,  of  sorcery,  of 
the  reappearance  of  the  dead,  of  ghosts,  of  apparitions  ? 
Is  not  the  evidence  in  favor  of  these  as  strong  as  any 
that  can  be  adduced  in  favor  of  miracles  ?  Have  not 
these  things  been  matters  of  universal  belief?  In  what 
respects  is  the  evidence  in  favor  of  the  miracles  of  the 
Bible  stronger  than  that  which  can  be  adduced  in  favor 
of  witchcraft  and  sorcery  ?  Does  it  differ  in  nature  and 
in  degree ;  and  if  it  differs,  is  it  not  in  favor  of  witch 
craft  and  sorcery  ?  Has  not  the  evidence  in  favor  of 
the  latter  been  derived  from  as  competent  and  credible 
witnesses  ?  Has  it  not  been  brought  to  us  from  those 
who  saw  the  facts  alleged?  Has  it  not  been  subjected 
to  a  close  scrutiny  in  courts  of  justice — to  cross-exam 
inations — to  tortures  ?  Has  it  not  convinced  those  of 
highest  legal  attainments ;  those  accustomed  to  sift  tes- 


162  LECTURES    ON   THE 

timony;  those  who  understood  the  true  principles  of 
evidence  ?  Has  not  the  evidence  in  favor  of  witchcraft 
and  sorcery  had,  what  the  evidence  in  favor  of  miracles 
has  not  had,  the  advantage  of  strict  judicial  investiga 
tion,  and  been  subjected  to  trial,  where  evidence  should 
be,  before  courts  of  law  ?  Have  not  the  most  eminent 
judges  in  the  most  civilized  and  enlightened  courts  of 
Europe  and  America  admitted  the  force  of  such  evi 
dence,  and  on  the  ground  of  it  committed  great  num 
bers  of  innocent  persons  to  the  gallows  or  to  the  stake  ? 

I  confess  that  of  all  the  questions  ever  asked  on  the 
subject  of  miracles,  this  is  the  most  perplexing  and  the 
most  difficult  to  answer.  It  is  rather  to  be  wondered 
at  that  it  has  not  been  pressed  with  more  zeal  by  those 
who  deny  the  reality  of  miracles,  and  that  they  have 
placed  their  objections  so  extensively  on  other  grounds. 
From  the  fact  that  it  is  so  seldom  referred  to  by  skep 
tics,  it  is  manifest  that  it  does  not  strike  them  as  it 
strikes  me,  and  that  they,  from  some  cause,  are  not  dis 
posed  to  use  it  as  I  would,  if  I  had  no  faith  in  miracles ; 
and  perhaps  it  may  savor  more  of  apparent  candor  than 
of  wise  prudence  for  a  believer  in  the  reality  of  mira 
cles  even  to  make  the  suggestion. 

The  argument  might  be  made  very  strong,  and  if 
there  were  time  to  present  it  here,  it  might  be  done  in 
such  a  manner  that  it  might  seem,  at  least,  to  be  impos 
sible  to  meet  and  refute  it. 

An  extract  or  two  from  Lecky,  in  his  History  of  Ra 
tionalism  in  Europe,  will  show  the  nature  of  the  diffi 
culty  and  the  force  of  the  objection,  though  the  remarks 
made  by  him  are  in  no  way  designed  to  support  the 
cause  of  infidelity:  "For  more  than  fifteen  hundred 
years  it  was  universally  believed  that  the  Bible  estab 
lished,  in  the  clearest  manner,  the  reality  of  the  crime 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHKISTIANITY.  163 

[of  witchcraft],  and  that  an  amount  of  evidence,  so  va 
ried  and  so  ample  as  to  preclude  the  very  possibility  of 
doubt,  attested  its  continuance  and  its  prevalence.  The 
clergy  denounced  it  with  all  the  emphasis  of  authority. 
The  legislators  of  almost  every  land  enacted  laws  for 
its  punishment.  Acute  judges,  whose  lives  were  spent 
in  sifting  evidence,  investigated  the  question  on  count 
less  occasions,  and  condemned  the  accused.  Tens  of 
thousands  of  victims  perished  by  the  most  agonizing 
and  protracted  torments  without  exciting  the  faintest 
compassion.  Nations  that  were  completely  separated 
by  position,  by  interests,  and  by  character,  on  this  one 
question  were  united.  In  almost  every  province  of 
Germany,  but  especially  in  those  where  clerical  influ 
ence  predominated,  the  persecution  raged  with  fearful 
intensity.  Seven  thousand  victims  are  said  to  have 
been  burned  at  Treves,  six  hundred  by  the  single  bishop 
of  Bamberg,  and  eight  hundred  in  a  single  year  in 
the  bishopric  of  Wurtzburg.  In  France,  decrees  were 
passed  on  the  subject  by  the  Parliaments  of  Paris,  Tou 
louse,  Bordeaux,  Rheims,  Rouen,  Dijon,  and  Rennes,  and 
they  were  all  followed  by  a  harvest  of  blood.  At  Tou 
louse,  the  seat  of  the  Inquisition,  four  hundred  persons 
perished  for  sorcery  at  a  single  execution,  and  fifty  at 
Douay  in  a  single  year.  Remy,  a  judge  of  Nancy, 
boasted  that  he  had  put  to  death  eight  hundred  witches 
in  sixteen  years.  The  executions  that  took  place  at 
Paris  in  a  few  months  were,  in  the  emphatic  words  of 
an  old  writer,  'almost  infinite.'  The  fugitives  who  es 
caped  to  Spain  were  there  seized  and  burned  by  the  In 
quisition.  In  Italy  a  thousand  persons  were  executed 
in  a  single  year  in  the  province  of  Como ;  in  the  other 
parts  of  the  country  the  severity  of  the  inquisitors  at 
last  created  an  absolute  rebellion.  In  Geneva  five  hund- 


164  LECTURES    ON   THE 

red  alleged  witches  were  executed  in  three  months ; 
forty-eight  were  burned  at  Constance  or  Ravensburg, 
and  eighty  in  the  little  town  of  Valery,  in  Savoy.  The 
Church  of  Rome  proclaimed  in  every  way  that  was  in 
her  power  the  reality  and  the  continued  existence  of 
the  crime." 

The  writer  from  whom  I  have  made  this  extract 
adds :  "  It  is,  I  think,  difficult  to  examine  the  subject 
with  impartiality,  without  coming  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  historical  evidence  establishing  the  reality  of 
witchcraft  is  so  vast  and  so  varied  that  it  is  impossible 
to  disbelieve  it  without  what  on  other  subjects  we 
should  deem  the  most  extraordinary  rashness.  The  de 
fenders  of  the  belief,  who  were  often  men  of  great  and 
distinguished  talent,  maintained  that  there  was  no  fact 
in  all  history  more  fully  attested,  and  that  to  reject  it 
would  be  to  strike  at  the  root  of  all  historical  evidence 
of  the  miraculous.  The  subject  was  examined  in  tens 
of  thousands  of  cases,  in  almost  every  country  of  Eu 
rope,  by  tribunals  which  included  the  acutest  lawyers 
and  ecclesiastics  of  the  age,  on  the  scene  at  the  time 
when  the  alleged  facts  had  taken  place,  and  with  the 
assistance  of  innumerable  sworn  witnesses.  The  judges 
had  no  motive  whatever  to  desire  the  condemnation  of 
the  accused ;  and  as  conviction  would  be  followed  by  a 
fearful  death,  they  had  the  strongest  motives  to  exer 
cise  their  power  with  caution  and  deliberation.  In  our 
day  it  may  be  said  with  confidence  that  it  would  be  al 
together  impossible  for  such  an  amount  of  evidence  to 
accumulate  round  a  conception  which  had  no  basis  in 
fact.  If  we  considered  witchcraft  probable,  a  hund 
redth  part  of  the  evidence  we  possess  would  have 
placed  it  beyond  the  region  of  doubt.  If  it  were  a 
natural,  but  a  very  improbable  fact,  our  reluctance  to 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  165 

believe  it  would  have  been  completely  stifled  by  the 
multiplicity  of  the  proofs."* 

As  materially  bearing  on  the  point  before  us,  it  would 
be  important  to  inquire  into  the  changes  which  have  oc 
curred  in  the  world  in  regard  to  faith  in  the  miraculous 
and  the  supernatural,  and  to  ask  to  'what  this  change 
tends,  or  how  it  bears  on  the  subject  of  miracles.  But 
I  have  not  time  or  ability  to  do  it,  and  it  has  been  done 
in  a  manner  which  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired  by 
Lecky. 

Successively,  by  the  slow  progress  of  civilization ;  by 
the  advances  of  science ;  by  being  able  by  natural  laws 
to  explain  what  were  once  regarded  as  portents  and 
wonders ;  by  a  gradual  cessation  of  faith  in  things  that 
seemed  to  be  established  by  incontrovertible  evidence, 
eclipses,  and  meteors,  and  famines,  and  earthquakes, 
and  comets,  have  been  removed  from  the  regions  of 
the  marvelous,  and,  in  like  manner,  the  faith  of  man 
kind  in  sorcery,  and  witchcraft,  and  magic  has,  to  a 
great  extent,  passed  away.  If  there  are  remains  of 
this  still  lingering  in  the  minds  of  men,  and  if  new  and 
strange  things  have  been  added  to  these  in  our  age 
not  less  absurd  and  irrational  than  the  faith  in  witch 
craft  and  sorcery,  these  are  not  so  general  as  materially 
to  affect  the  question  before  us.  It  has  not  yet  occur 
red,  as  far  as  I  know,  to  infidelity  to  place  the  subject 
of  "  table-moving"  and  "  spirit-rapping"  on  a  level  with 
the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament. 

It  is  a  great  question  now — the  great  question  of  our 
age  in  regard  to  religion,  and  not  less  important  in  re 
gard  to  science — How  far  is  this  skepticism  to  extend? 
What  is  its  proper  limit  ?  Is  the  principle  to  become 

*  See  Lecky,  History  of  Rationalism  in  Europe,  vol.  i.,  pp.  28,  34, 
36,  37,  38,  39. 


166  LECTURES    ON    THE 

so  universal  as  to  include  all  the  facts  claiming  to  be 
of  a  supernatural  nature  which  have  actually  occurred, 
or  which  will  occur  in  our  world  ?  Is  it  to  embrace 
the  whole  region  of  the  miraculous  and  the  supernatu 
ral,  so  as  to  exclude  the  idea  of  any  direct  agency  on  the 
part  of  God,  any -phenomena — any  changes — the  ante 
cedents  in  which  are  only  the  divine  will  and  the  divine 
power  ?  So  it  is  maintained  by  Rationalists ;  such,  too, 
is  the  practical  belief  of  many  men  whose  lives  are  de 
voted  to  science. 

The  progress  of  things,  the  influences  of  civilization, 
the  discoveries  of  science  in  regard  to  physical  laws, 
have  "exorcised"  the  world,  if  the  expression  may  be 
allowed,  in  regard  to  sorcery,  witchcraft,  magic,  necro 
mancy,  portents  and  wonders  in  eclipses,  storms,  and 
earthquakes ;  are  these  to  "  exorcise"  the  world  in  re 
gard  to  mesmerism,  spiritualism,  spirit-rapping,  and 
table  -  moving ;  and  are  they  also  to  "  exorcise"  it 
in  regard  to  the  belief  that  Joshua  caused  the  sun  to 
"  stand  still  upon  Gibeon,"  and  the  moon  "  in  the  valley 
of  Ajalon ;"  in  regard  to  the  stilling  of  the  tempest  on 
the  Sea  of  Tiberias  ;  in  regard  to  the  healing  of  the  lame 
man  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda ;  in  regard  to  the  opening 
of  the  eyes  of  Bartimeus ;  in  regard  to  the  raising  of 
Lazarus  from  the  grave ;  in  regard  to  the  resurrection 
of  the  Redeemer  himself? 

So  say  the  Rationalist  and  the  skeptic,  and  here  issue 
is  joined. 

We  approach,  then,  this  great  question  in  this  form; 
and  my  wish  is  to  show  you  exactly  how  this  matter 
lies;  what  progress  is  made  toward  this  result;  what 
there  is  to  show  that  this  result  can  never  be  reached, 
and  that,  notwithstanding  all  this,  the  believer  in  the 
miracles  of  the  Bible  has  no  cause  of  alarm  as  to  any 
such  result. 


EVIDENCE'S    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  16  Y 

I  shall,  in  the  remainder  of  this  Lecture,  first  make 
some  preliminary,  or,  rather,  if  you  will  allow  the  word, 
eliminary*  remarks,  and  then  show  you  that  this  con 
clusion  has  not  been  reached,  and  that  it  is  impossible 
for  men  to  reach  it,  leaving  in  fact  in  the  nineteenth 
century  the  evidence  for  miracles  the  same  as  that  of 
ordinary  well-authenticated  facts  in  history  on  other 
subjects. 

(a)  The  first  remark  is,  that  the  universal  belief  in 
miracles  and  the  marvelous ;  the  ease  with  which  such 
things  are  credited  by  men,  the  most  enlightened  as 
well  as  the  unenlightened,  statesmen,  jurists,  ecclesi 
astics,  law-givers,  sages — Socrates,  Coke,  Bacon,  Hale, 
among  numberless  others — shows  that  a  belief  in  the 
supernatural  and  the  marvelous  does  not  shock  man 
kind  ;  is  not  contrary  to  the  laws  of  the  human  mind ; 
is  rather  in  accordance  with  some  law  of  our  nature 
that  looks  for  such  interventions,  and  seeks  and  expects 
to  be  gratified.  It  may  be  added,  also,  that  this  proves 
that  men  would  naturally  expect  such  an  intervention 
if  a  revelation  were  made  to  mankind. — It  is  not  safe  to 
argue  against  a  universal  law  of  human  nature ;  against 
deep  convictions  which  have  been  implanted  in  the  soul 
of  man,  and  which  seek  expression  in  all  ages  and  among 
all  people.  Such  a  method  of  reasoning  will  be  found, 
sooner  or  later,  to  be  fundamentally  wrong.  We  may 
assume  that  our  Maker  did  not  constitute  our  being  on 
a  universal  lie,  or  incorporate  into  our  nature  faith  in  a 
universal  falsehood.  This  may  be  called  credulity ;  su 
perstition  ;  the  fruit  of  ignorance ;  prejudice.  The  ma 
terial  fact,  however,  is  that  the  mind  of  man  is  so  made  / 
and  that  this  proves  that  He  who  made  it  designed 
so  to  endow  it  that  it  would  not  be  shocked  by  the 

*  Eliminating,  expelling ;  discharging;  throwing  off. —  Webster. 


168  LECTURES    ON   THE 

marvelous  and  the  supernatural,  and  that  men  should 
be  prepared  to  welcome  the  evidence  of  the  truly  mi 
raculous  when  it  is  presented  to  them.  It  is  to  be 
presumed,  also,  that  if  this  is  the  original  and  normal 
state  of  the  human  mind,  there  would  be  events  under 
the  divine  government  which  would  properly  corre 
spond  with  this.  The  fact  that  men  are  made  with  eyes 
adapted  to  vision  is  presumptive  evidence  that  there 
would  be  light  corresponding  with  their  structure,  and 
that  there  would  be  things  to  be  seen ;  the  original  ca 
pacity  of  mankind  for  knowledge  supposes  that  there 
would  be  things  to  be  known ;  that  law  of  our  nature 
which  demands  society  presupposes  that  there  would 
be  other  beings  with  whom  friendships  could  be  formed ; 
the  natural  desire  of  men  to  know  God  supposes  that 
there  is  a  God  to  be  known ;  the  universal  expectation 
of  miracles  supposes  that  there  would  be  miracles  in 
which  man  could  believe. 

(b)  The  second  remark  is,  that  the  question  so  much 
agitated,  and  so  difficult  of  solution,  at  what  time  mira 
cles  ceased  in  the  Church,  and  whether  they  were  or 
were  not  continued  after  the  time  of  the  apostles,  does 
not  affect  the  question  whether  the  miracles  of  the  New 
Testament  were  really  performed ;  whether,  for  exam 
ple,  Jesus  turned  water  into  wine,  or  raised  Lazarus 
from  the  grave.  If  those  miracles  which  were  claimed 
to  be  performed  in  the  early  Church  were  false ;  if  those 
claimed  to  be  wrought  by  the  Holy  Coat  at  Treves 
were  true ;  if  those  wrought  by  the  Emperor  Vespasian, 
and  at  the  tomb  of  St.  Francis  Xavier,  on  which  Mr. 
Hume  dwells  so  complacently,  were  true  or  were  false, 
it  does  not  prove  that  God  did  not  interpose  by  direct 
power  in  giving  a  new  religion  to  the  world,  and  in  fur 
nishing  attestations  that  the  great  messenger  came  from 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  169 

him.  If  the  Christian  fathers  worked  miracles,  it  does 
not  prove  that  Paul  did  not ;  if  those  claimed  to  have 
been  wrought  by  the  fathers  were  false,  that  does  not 
prove  that  those  which  Christ  claimed  to  have  wrought 
were  false  also.  If  there  have  been  false  claimants  to 

• 

the  crown  of  England,  that  does  not  prove  that  the 
claim  of  the  present  sovereign  is  unfounded. 

(c)  A  third  remark  is,  that  it  is  assuming  more  than  can 
be  proved  that  direct  divine  interventions  in  the  affairs 
of  the  universe  have  ceased  now  altogether,  or  that  there 
are  no  events  occurring  in  which  the  divine  will  and  the 
divine  power  are  the  only  antecedents.  Proof  on  that 
point  is  obviously  beyond  the  capacity  of  man.  In  the 
argument  of  Dr.  Clarke  on  the  Being  of  a  God,  it  was  re 
marked  that,  unless  man  was  omnipresent,  he  could  not 
possibly  demonstrate  that  there  was  no  God ;  for  in  that 
part  of  space  beyond  him,  and  which  he  could  not  pene 
trate,  it  was  possible  that  there  might  be  a  God.  In  like 
manner  we  may  say  that,  unless  man  now  is  omnipres 
ent,  and  unless  he  can  bring  all  the  events  which  occur, 
seen  and  unseen,  under  the  explanation  of  natural  laws, 
it  impossible  that  some  of  those  events  may  be  perform 
ed  by  the  direct  agency  of  God.  Moreover,  it  is  im 
possible  to  prove  that  God  has  in  any  way  so  pledged 
or  committed  himself  to  abide  always  by  established 
and  regular  laws,  and  never  to  put  forth  his  direct  pow 
er  in  creation,  in  the  government  of  worlds,  or  in  their 
destruction,  that  man  can  assume  this  as  an  axiom  or 
established  truth,  in  relation  to  the  present  races  of 
animals  now  on  the  earth,  or  in  relation  to  any  new 
races  that  he  may  bring  upon  the  stage.  At  no  one 
of  the  old  geological  periods  of  our  world  could  it  have 
been  shown  that  God  had  "  committed"  or  "  pledged" 
himself  that  he  would  not  sweep  off  the  existing  races, 

II 


170  LECTURES    ON    THE 

and  that  he  would  create  no  more ;  nor  does  the  fact 
of  the  uniformity  of  laws,  so  far  as  established  yet, 
constitute  any  such  "  committal"  on  the  part  of  God 
that  he  will  not  again  interpose  by  his  direct  power  in 
the  affairs  of  the  universe.  It  is  certain  that  there  are 
many  things  occurring  which  science  has  not  as  yet 
been  able  to  reduce  to  natural  and  regular  laws,  great 
as  is  the  progress  which  has  been  made  in  that  direc 
tion  ;  it  is  equally  certain  that  but  a  small  part  of  our 
own  world — land,  water,  air — has  been  explored ;  it  is 
certain  that  man  knows  almost  nothing  of  the  manner 
in  which  things  are  done  in  distant  worlds ;  and  it  is 
possible  that  in  that  vast  region  of  the  unknown  there 
may  be  things  occurring  which  are  the  direct  and  im 
mediate  result  of  the  will  and  the  power  of  God.  At 
all  events,  man  is  not  in  a  condition  to  pronounce  an 
opinion  on  that  subject,  and  he  violates  one  of  the  rules 
of  sound  philosophy  when,  from  so  narrow  a  basis  of 
observed  facts,  he  draws  a  sweeping  and  universal  con 
clusion. 

(d)  A  fourth  remark  is,  that  it  is  difficult  to  see  why 
the  facts  in  a  miracle,  if  a  miracle  occurs,  are  not  as  sus 
ceptible  of  proof  as  any  other  facts.  If  the  sun  stood 
still  at  the  command  of  Joshua,  the  fact  was  in  itself  as 
susceptible  of  proof  as  that  the  sun  seemed  to  move ; 
if  a  lame  man  "  leaped  as  an  hart,"  there  would  be  no 
more  difficulty,  one  would  suppose,  in  proving  that  he 
leaped  than  that  any  other  man  leaped ;  if  one  who  was 
sick  rose  up  and  carried  his  couch,  there  would  be  no 
more  difficulty  in  establishing  such  a  fact  in  regard  to 
him  than  in  regard  to  another  man ;  and  if  one  who  was 
dead  was  alive  again,  that  fact,  it  would  seem,  would 
be  susceptible  of  easy  proof.  The  testimony  of  credi 
ble  witnesses  that  they  had  seen  such  a  man  as  Lazarus 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  171 

in  ordinary  life  would  not  be  called  in  question;  how 
would  the  testimony  that  they  saw  him  after  it  was 
known  or  affirmed  that  he  was  dead  vary  the  nature  of 
the  evidence '?  In  what  respects  does  the  testimony 
diifer?  What  is  the  testimony  when  one  affirms  that 
he  has  seen  a  certain  person?  How  does  that  differ 
when  the  testimony  pertains  to  the  same  person  at 
another  time,  even  after  it  was  known  that  he  was 
dead  ?  If  in  the  one  case  the  fact  can  be  established, 
why  may  it  not  in  the  other  ? 

The  illusion  here,  to  use  no  harsher  term,  is  in  the 
supposition  as  to  what  is  seen  m  the  case.  The  objector 
to  miracles  supposes  that  it  is  necessary  to  see  the  miracle 
itself,  and  that,  unless  this  is  seen,  there  can  be  no  prop 
er  testimony  in  the  case.  But  no  witness  could  possibly 
see  two  and  two  make  four,  in  the  abstract.  No  man 
pretends  that  he  sees  the  changes  which  occur  in  the 
growth  of  a  plant,  or  in  the  formation  of  the  animal  from 
the  embryo,  or  the  fowl  from  the  egg.  No  man  pre 
tends  to  see  the  processes  in  the  changes  which  occur  in 
the  laboratory  of  the  chemist.  In  the  last  case,  as  sub 
stantially  in  all  these  cases,  what  is  seen  is  the  appear 
ance  of  certain  combinations  of  the  elements  of  matter 
in  one  form,  and  then  the.  appearance  of  the  same  ele 
ments  of  matter  as  they  exist  in  new  formations.  The 
testimony  of  the  chemist  as  to  the  existence  of  the  lat 
ter  would  be  as  credible  as  his  testimony  in  regard  to 
the  former ,  and  would  require  no  additional  confirma 
tion.  No  one  would  call  the  testimony  in  question  be 
cause  he  had  not  seen  the  process  of  the  transformation, 
or  because  there  was  a  power  there,  lying  back  of  the 
new  form  assumed,  which  he  could  not  explain  or  un 
derstand.  The  facts  in  the  case  would  in  no  manner 
be  affected  by  this  consideration,  nor,  in  examining 


172  LECTURES    ON   THE 

such  a  witness,  would  that  consideration  be  allowed  to 
affect  the  credibility  of  the  testimony.  Suppose  that 
that  power  were  the  direct  power  and  will  of  God — as 
for  aught  he  knows  it  may  be — would  that  affect  the 
nature  of  the  testimony  of  the  chemist  as  to  the  reality 
of  the  visible  change  ?  And  then  suppose  that  he  were 
called  to  give  testimony  as  to  the  fact  that  a  man  was 
blind,  and  that  a  man  saw,  how  does  the  fact  that  there 
may  lie  between  the  two  things  the  power  and  the  will 
of  God  affect  the  one  case  more  than  the  other  ?  There 
are  difficulties  in  such  a  transformation  which  no  one 
has  been  able  to  explain,  but  those  difficulties  in  ordi 
nary  cases  would  not  be  allowed  to  be  a  bar  to  the  re 
ception  of  the  testimony  as  to  the  preceding  and  the 
subsequent  facts.  Lazarus  before  his  death  and  Laza 
rus  after  his  death  was  precisely  the  same  man ;  and  it 
is  difficult  to  see  how  the  testimony  in  regard  to  him, 
if  exactly  the  same,  should  be  admitted  in  the  one  case 
and  rejected  in  the  other. 

(e)  One  other  remark.  It  is,  that  science,  so  far  as  it 
has  gone,  has  demonstrated  that  the  alleged  miracles 
of  the  New  Testament,  if  the  facts  occurred,  can  not  be 
explained  by  the  laws  of  nature,  or  that  they  could  not 
have  been  wrought  by  any  physical  laws.  Very  many 
things,  as  we  have  seen,  once  deemed  supernatural  and 
miraculous,  have  been  shown  to  be  the  production  of 
the  ordinary  laws  of  nature,  and  have  thus  been  re 
moved  from  the  region  of  the  marvelous,  and  have 
taken  their  places  among  things  well  understood  as 
being  in  accordance  with  regular  laws.  Eclipses,  mete 
ors,  comets,  earthquakes,  the  lightning,  the  ignusfatuus 
— things  that  once  alarmed  mankind,  have  thus,  to  a 
great  extent,  taken  their  places  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  events.  ^Esculapius  is  no  longer  worshiped  as  the 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  173 

god  of  medicine,  for  it  is  no  longer  supposed  that  there 
is  any  direct  and  supernatural  divine  agency  in  the 
healing  art ;  nor  are  Ceres  or  Neptune  worshiped  as  if 
supernatural  divine  power  were  manifested  in  the  rear 
ing  of  fruits,  or  in  regulating  the  storm,  or  in  the  ebbing 
and  the  flowing  of  the  waters  of  the  sea.  The  magician 
has  given  way  to  the  chemist  working  by  established 
laws.  Marvels  and  wonders,  therefore,  have  been  great 
ly  limited  and  diminished  by  placing  these  events  un 
der  the  operation  of  the  regular  rules  of  nature. 

Science  has  not  advanced  so  far,  however,  as  to  ex 
plain  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament  on  any  known 
principles,  as  it  has  in  these  matters,  nor  has  it  made 
any  approximation  to  it.  Nay,  just  so  far  as  it  has 
gone  it  has  demonstrated  that  those  miracles  can  not  be 
explained  on  any  principles  known,  or  likely  to  be  known, 
to  science — gravitation,  attraction,  repulsion,  electric 
ity,  galvanism,  or  the  "healing  properties  of  vegeta 
bles  or  minerals.  The  chemist  does  not  open  the  eyes 
of  the  blind  by  a  touch ;  he  does  not  heal  the  sick  by 
a  word ;  he  does  not  raise  the  dead  by  the  blow-pipe 
or  by  galvanism.  In  the  language  of  Mr.  Mansel, "  The 
advance  of  physical  science  tends  to  strengthen  rather 
than  to,  weaken  our  conviction  of  the  supernatural  char 
acter  of  the  Christian  miracles.  In  whatever  propor 
tion  our  knowledge  of  physical  causation  is  limited, 
and  the  number  of  unknown  natural  agents  compara 
tively  large,  in  the  same  proportion  is  the  probability 
that  some  of  these  unknown  causes,  acting  in  some  un 
known  manner,'may  have  given  rise  to  the  alleged  mar 
vels.  But  this  probability  diminishes  when  each  newly- 
discovered  agent,  as  its  properties  become  known,  is 
shown  to  be  inadequate  to  the  production  of  the  sup 
posed  effects,  and  as  the  residue  of  unknown  causes, 


174  LECTURES    ON   THE 

which  might  produce  them,  becomes  smaller  and  small 
er.  We  are  told,  indeed,  that  the  '  inevitable  progress 
of  research  must,  within  a  longer  or  shorter  period,  un 
ravel  all  that  seems  most  marvelous  ;'*  but  we  may  be 
permitted  to  doubt  the  relevancy  of  the  remark  to  the 
present  case,  until  it  has  been  shown  that  the  advance 
of  science  has  in  some  degree  enabled  men  to  perform 
the  miracles  performed  by  Christ.  When  the  inevitable 
progress  of  research  shall  have  enabled  men  of  modern 
times  to  give  sight  to  the  blind  with  a  touch,  to  still 
tempests  with  a  word,  to  raise  the  dead  to  life,  to  die 
themselves,  and  to  rise  again,  we  may  allow  that  the 
same  causes  might  possibly  have  been  called  into  oper 
ation  ten  thousand  years  earlier,  by  some  great  man  in 
advance  of  his  age.  But,  until  this  is  done,  the  unrav 
eling  of  the  marvelous  in  other  phenomena  only  serves 
to  leave  these  works  in  their  solitary  grandeur,  as 
wrought  by  the  finger  of  God,  unapproached  and  unap 
proachable  by  all  the  knowledge  and  all  the  power  of 
man.  The  appearance  of  a  comet  or  the  fall  of  an  aero 
lite  may  be  reduced  by  the  advance  of  science  from  a 
supposed  supernatural  to  a  natural  occurrence ;  and  this 
reduction  furnishes  a  reasonable  presumption  that  other 
phenomena  of  a  like  character  will  in  time  meet  with  a 
like  explanation.  But  the  reverse  is  the  case  with  re 
spect  to  those  phenomena  which  are  narrated  as  pro 
duced  by  personal  agency.  In  proportion  as  the  science 
of  to-day  surpasses  that  of  former  generations,  so  is  the 
improbability  that  any  man  could  have  done  in  past 
times,  by  natural  means,  works  which  no  skill  of  the 
present  age  is  able  to  imitate,  "f 

With  these  general  remarks  on  the  subject  of  mira 
cles,  I  proceed  to  state  what  is  the  form  which  the  ar- 

*  Essays  and  Reviews,  p.  109.  f  Aids  to  Faith,  p.  21,  22. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  175 

gument  assumes  in  the  nineteenth  century,  or,  in  the 
present  age  of  the  world,  with  all  the  advances  which 
have  been  made  in  science ;  or  what  points  have  been 
established  as  bearing  on  the  possibility  and  the  credi 
bility  of  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament. 

I.  The  first  remark  is,  that  no  such  universality  of 
the  certain  and  fixed  laws  of  nature  as  is  claimed  by 
those  who  deny  the  reality  of  miracles,  has  been  ascer 
tained  and  demonstrated;  nor  can  it  be.  In  other 
words,  amidst  the  infinite  number  and  variety  of  phe 
nomena  which  have  occurred  in  our  world,  and  in  other 
worlds,  and  which  are  now  constantly  occurring,  it  has 
not  been  demonstrated,  and  can  not  be,  that  there  are 
none  in  respect  to  which  the  only  antecedent  is  the  di 
rect  will  and  power  of  God.  To  show  that  miracles 
are  not  possible,  and  not  credible,  it  is  necessary  to  do 
this.  But  this  can  not  be  done ;  for,  if  there  is  any  thing 
made  clear  by  science,  it  is  that  the  human  powers  of 
observation  and  comprehension  are  not  vast  enough  to 
establish  so  universal  a  proposition.  The  argument  of 
Newton  in  regard  to  "  gravitation"  could  not  reach  the 
point  that  there  is,  and  has  been  nowhere,  any  matter 
that  is  not  moved  by  another  force.  The  laws  of  Kep 
ler  in  regard  to  planetary  motions  are  not  so  establish 
ed  in  regard  to  their  universality  that  there  may  not 
be,  somewhere  in  the  boundlessness  of  space,  worlds 
held  in  being,  and  moved  by  other  forces  than  these. 

The  remark  now  made,  so  obvious,  demonstrates  that 
no  one  can  prove  that  the  uniformity  and  fixedness  of 
the  laws  of  nature  is  so  "  universal"  as  to  exclude  the 
possibility  of  miracles  ;  for  such  a  demonstration  must 
take  in  all  events,  all  worlds,  all  systems,  all  beings — 
angels  and  God  as  well  as  men.  Our  "  experience,"  of 
which  so  much  is  made  by  Mr.  Hume,  pertains  only  to 


176  LECTURES    ON  THE 

our  own  world  and  to  men;  it  takes  in  nothing  be 
yond.  But,  to  be  complete,  the  demonstration  must 
take  in  all  worlds,  creatures,  systems,  ages,  and  cycles  of 
ages,  and  must  establish  the  fact  that  in  all  these  things 
God  never  does  perform,  and  never  has  performed,  any 
act  by  his  own  immediate  power  or  will,  or  that  no 
world  has  been  called  into  being,  that  no  creature  has 
been  made,  that  no  event  has  occurred,  where  the  only 
antecedent  in  the  case  was  the  divine  power  and  will. 
Obviously  this  is  wholly  beyond  the  power  of  man  to 
demonstrate.  There  have  been  times  in  the  history 
of  the  universe  of  which  no  records  have  come  to  us. 
How  can  man  demonstrate  what  has  or  what  has  not 
been  done,  then?  There  are  worlds  which  man  has 
never  seen  by  the  naked  eye  or  by  the  glass.  How  can 
he  demonstrate  what  has  been  or  has  not  been  done 
in  those  worlds  ?  There  may  be  beings  of  whose  "  ex 
perience"  man  has  no  knowledge.  How  can  he  de 
termine  how  they  came  into  existence,  or  prove  that 
among  them  there  are  not  events  produced  by  the  di 
rect  power  of  God  ?  There  may  be  worlds  and  systems 
— "  nebulce" — that  are  so  detached  from  our  system  that 
we  can  not  demonstrate  that  the  same  laws  which  gov 
ern  our  system  control  them,  or  that,  in  the  infinity 
of  the  divine  resources,  there  may  not  be  methods  of 
controlling  those  worlds  which  are  unknown  here. 
How  is  man  to  determine  that  point  ?  And,  moreover, 
there  may  be  a  spiritual  world — a  world  so  detached 
from  all  matter,  and  so  wholly  independent  of  matter, 
that  nothing  can  be  inferred  in  regard  to  the  laws 
which  govern  it  from  the  laws  of  Kepler  or  Newton. 
Who  can  tell  how  God  may  act  in  that  spiritual  world  ? 
Who  can  demonstrate  that  in  that  world  no  event  ever 
occurs  where  the  sole  antecedent  is  the  divine  power 
and  the  divine  will  ? 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  177 

As,  therefore,  no  one  can  prove  that  there  is  no  God 
unless  he  himself  is  infinite,  and  can  be  present  in  all 
the  immensity  of  space  at  the  same  time,  since  where 
he  is  not  there  God  may  be,  so  it  is  true  that  no  one 
can  prove  that  the  laws  of  nature  are  so  fixed  and  uni 
versal  that  a  miracle  is  impossible,  unless  he  himself 
can  take  in  the  whole  of  the  universe,  since  it  may  be 
true  that  beyond  the  sphere  of  his  knowledge  there  are 
events  the  only  antecedent  of  which  are  the  will  and 
the  power  of  God. 

The  observation  now  made,  if  well  founded,  must 
meet  all  that  has  been  said  by  Mr.  Hume  in  regard  to 
"  experience,"  so  far  as  that  bears  on  the  subject.  When 
it  is  said  by  him  that  "  as  a  firm  and  unalterable  ex 
perience  has  established  these  laws,  the  proof  against 
a  miracle,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  fact,  is  as  entire 
as  any  argument  from  experience  can  possibly  be  imag-' 
ined,"  the  word  "  experience,"  if  it  has  any  meaning, 
must  refer  to  experience  that  embraces  the  whole  sub 
ject  /  that  is,  in  relation  to  all  the  events  to  which  the 
question  of  such  uniformity  would  be  applicable.  But 
it  is  clear  that  among  men  there  has  been  no  such  "  ex 
perience."  There  have  been,  and  there  are,  many  events 
w^hich  lie  quite  beyond  any  such  range  of  observation 
hitherto  made;  there  are  undoubtedly  many  things 
which  have  not  as  yet  been  reduced  to  any  known 
laws,  and  it  is  yet  an  open  question  whether  they  can 
be ;  that  is,  whether  the  powers  of  men  are  adequate 
to  the  inquiry,  and  whether,  if  they  are  thus  adequate, 
the  events  are  of  such  a  nature  that  they  can  be  re 
duced  to  regular  and  fixed  laws.  In  the  earlier  periods 
of  the  world,  as  already  remarked,  there  were  many 
things  that  passed  under  the  name  of  "  miracles"  and 
wonders — phenomena  which  there  was  no  way  thus  of 
H2 


178  LECTURES    ON    THE 

accounting  for — whose  causes  are  now  familiar  to  us, 
for  in  the  ruder  ages  of  the  world  they  seemed  to  lie 
wholly  in  the  regions  of  the  marvelous.  As  science  ad 
vances,  the  circle  of  those  marvelous  works  is  contract 
ed,  and  a  large  part  of  those  wonders  is  reduced  to  the 
dominion  of  fixed  laws.  The  laboratory  of  the  chemist 
now  exhibits  many  a  phenomena  which  in  the  Middle 
Ages  would  have  been  classed  among  the  marvelous, 
now  reduced  to  the  regular  operation  of  law ;  and  it 
can  not  be  doubted  that  there  may  be  yet  in  nature 
many  a  secret  power  that  has  not  yet  been  made  the 
subject  of  scientific  observation,  or  been  brought  under 
the  general  word  "  experience.'1''  It  can  not  be  regarded 
as  improbable  that  many  of  those  things  will  thus  be 
carefully  observed,  arranged,  and  classified,  and  that 
they  will  be  found  to  be  under  the  control  of  fixed  and 
unchanging  laws  •  but  the  world  is  not  yet  far  enough 
advanced  to  justify  the  assertion  that  the  "  experience" 
of  mankind  extends  to  all  these  things.  "Not  until  this 
is  done,  and  not  until  that  "  experience"  shall  take  in 
the  whole  of  the  distant  material  worlds  and  systems, 
and  not  until  that  "experience"  shall  take  in  also  the 
whole  of  the  spiritual  world,  could  it  be  affirmed  that 
it  has  been  demonstrated  by  "  experience"  that  there 
may  not  be  events  the  sole  antecedent  of  which  is  the 
will  and  the  power  of  God.  Man  can  not,  therefore,  as 
yet,  prove  that  miracles  are  impossible. 

II.  The  second  remark  in  regard  to  miracles,  as  a  se 
quence  of  what  has  already  been  said,  is,  that  the  effect 
of  the  progress  of  true  science  is  to  demonstrate  that 
the  hypothesis  which  refers  miracles  to  unknown  nat 
ural  causes  is  baseless ;  and  that  if  the  events  occurred, 
they  were  real  miracles.  The  only  possible  opinions  in 
regard  to  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament  are,  that 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  179 

they  were  not  performed  at  all ;  or  that  they  were  per 
formed,  as  those  who  wrought  them  declared,  in  virtue 
of  a  supernatural  power,  and  in  attestation  of  their  own 
divine  mission ;  or  that  they  "  are  distorted  statements 
of  events  reducible  to  known  natural  causes."  This 
last  was  the  solution  suggested  by  Paulus,  who  pro 
posed  to  explain  them  on  "  naturalistic"  principles ;  it  is 
adopted  substantially  by  Prof.  Baden  Powell  ;*  and  it  is 
the  explanation  of  the  causes  of  many  of  the  events  re 
ferred  to  as  miracles  in  the  New  Testament  offered  by 
Renan.  But,  as  has  been  already  remarked,  and  the  re 
mark  deserves  to  be  repeated,  for  it  is  vital  to  the  whole 
question,  science  makes  no  approximation  to  this  solu 
tion,  but  its  tendency  has  all  been  in  the  opposite  direc 
tion — to  separate  these  events  more  and  more  from  the 
common  operations  of  nature.  The  "  experience"  of  the 
world,  in  the  observation  of  events,  has  never  gone  to 
ward  the  point  that  there  is  a  secret  power  in  nature  to 
raise  the  dead,  and  if  the  dead  have  been  raised  it  has 
been  where  the  only  antecedent  in  the  case  has  been 
the  power  and  the  will  of  God.  "  There  remains,"  there 
fore,  "only  the,  choice  between  a  deeper  faith  and  a 
bolder  unbelief;  between  accepting  the  sacred  narrative 
as  a  true  account  of  miracles  actually  performed,  and 
rejecting  it  as  wholly  fictitious  and  incredible."! 

The  case  where  it  is  alleged  that  one  has  been  raised 
from  the  dead  may  be  referred  to  as  an  illustration  of 
this  point.  The  case  supposed  is  this :  First.  There 
was  actual — real  death.  It  was  not  a  swoon ;  not  a  dis 
ease  that  for  a  time  produced  the  appearance  of  death ; 
not  suspended  animation  —  it  was  actual  death.  Such 
is  supposed  in  the  case  of  Lazarus,  and  in  the  case  of 

*  "On  the  Study  of  the  Evidences  of  Christianity." 
f  Prof.  Mansel,  Aids  to  Faith,  p.  23. 


180  LECTUKES    ON   THE 

Jesus  himself.  Second.  There  was  a  restoration  to 
real  life ;  the  restoration  of  the  same  person ;  the 
preservation  of  personal  identity.  It  was  not  a  phan 
tasm  ;  not  an  appearance ;  not  a  spirit ;  not  an  imma 
terial  substance  that  deceived  the  senses.  In  the  case 
of  both  Lazarus  and  Jesus,  it  was  a  restoration  to  real 
life  of  the  same  person.  Both  are  represented  as  they 
were  before  they  died;  both  are  recognized  by  their 
friends  ;  both  eat,  walk,  talk,  have  the  same  sympathies, 
friendships,  affections  as  before ;  both  are  cognizable 
in  all  these  respects  as  they  were  before  they  died. 
Third.  Science  does  not  do  this ;  does  not  approach  it. 
There  has  never  been  an  instance  in  the  "  experience" 
of  the  world  in  which  it  has  been  done  by  natural  laws ; 
there  has  never  been  an  instance  in  which  it  has  been 
claimed  that  it  has  been  thus  done;  there  has  never 
been  an  instance  in  which  there  has  ever  been  an  ap 
proach  to  it.  There  have  been  instances  of  restoration 
from  suspended  animation ;  there  has  been  spasmodic 
muscular  action  produced  by  galvanism;  there  may 
have  been  a  momentary  inflation  of  the  lungs ;  there 
may  have  been  even  a  smile  produced  on  the  counte 
nance  of  the  dead — the  horrible  appearance  of  laughter 
in  the  sardonic  grin,  but  there  has  been  no  real  life,  no 
regular  heaving  of  the  lungs,  no  living  real  smile  pro 
duced  in  one  who  has  been  actually  dead.  Thus  far  the 
"  experience"  of  the  world  on  this  subject  has  been  as 
"  uniform"  as  any  experience  can  be,  that  science  lays 
no  claim  to  the  power  of  raising  the  dead. 

m.  My  third  remark  in  regard  to  miracles  in  their 
relation  to  the  laws  of  nature  is,  that  there  is  a  sense 
in  which  those  "  laws  of  nature,"  so  fixed  and  determ 
ined,  are  constantly  set  aside,  or  are  "violated"  by 
the  action  of  other  "  laws  of  nature,"  that  is,  they  are 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  181 

held  absolutely  in  check  so  long  as  those  other  laws 
prevail.  When  the  lightning  strikes  a  tree,  "it  puts 
an  end  to  all  the  ordinary  development  of  vegetation," 
and  seems  to  be  a  bare  conflict  of "  force  with  law." 
Yet  it  is  also  true  that  the  lightning  follows  a  law  of 
its  own,  and  that  law  seems  to  conflict  with  law,  or 
that  one  law  sets  another  aside,  and  that  there  are  me- 
teorologic  laws  to  which  both  the  lightning  and  the 
vegetation  are  subject.*  The  same  thing  is  true  when 
the  wind  raises  up  the  waters  of  the  ocean  and  piles 
them  in  mountains,  or  w^hen  the  vapor  is  upborne  and 
carried  by  the  clouds  over  valleys  and  hills,  or  when 
the  dust  of  the  earth  is  raised  up  by  the  whirlwind — in 
each  case  suspending,  or  "  violating,"  for  the  time,  the 
law  of  gravitation,  the  most  "  universal"  law  in  nature. 
This  result  is  perhaps  still  more  manifest  in  the  princi 
ple  of  life,  that  mysterious  and  unknown  principle  which 
seems  to  have  the  power,  during  its  continuance,  of 
"  violating"  all  the  laws  of  nature.  By  that  principle 
the  chemical  elements  which  enter  into  the  composition 
of  the  oak  are  detached  from  their  natural  connections 
as  they  are  found  in  the  air,  the  earth,  and  the  waters  ; 
the  chemical  laws  which  held  them  in  those  connections 
are  suspended ;  they  enter,  under  the  principle  of  life, 
into  new  combinations,  constituting  now  the  component 
parts  of  a  tree  —  the  organic  structure,  the  fibre,  the 
bark,  the  branch,  the  leaf,  the  fruit — and  they  are  held 
together  by  that  principle  of  life  by  all  the  power  need 
ful  to  lift  up  the  enormous  mass  from  the  earth,  despite 
the  law  of  gravitation,  and  to  keep  it  steadfast  against 
the  influence  of  storms  and  tempests,  century  after  centu 
ry,  until  that  principle  of  life  shall  loose  its  grasp  and  be 
come  extinct,  and  then,  not  before,  the  chemical  laws  re- 
*  Tracts  for  Priests  and  People,  p.  342. 


182  LECTURES    ON   THE 

sume  their  power,  and  the  old  oak  returns  to  gases  and 
to  earths  under  the  resumed  operation  of  those  laws. 
The  same  thing  is  still  more  strikingly  manifest  in  the 
animal  structure,  under  the  principle  of  life.  The  ele 
ments  that  make  up  the  human  body — carbon,  hydro 
gen,  nitrogen,  oxygen,  phosphorus,  lime,  iron,  sulphur, 
sodium,  potassium,  magnesium  —  are  all  detached  from 
their  natural  connections  in  the  air,  the  earth,  and  the 
waters — in  the  animal,  the  vegetable,  and  the  mineral 
world — and  are  formed  into  an  entirely  new  combina 
tion  of  bone,  sinew,  nerves,  muscle,  with  a  definite  size 
and  shape,  moulded  and  rounded,  not  by  the  physical 
laws  of  nature,  but  in  spite  of  those  laws,  by  a  principle 
which  "  violates"  them  for  the  time,  and  holds  them  as 
long  as  it  pleases ;  and  it  is  not  until  life  decays,  and 
this  new  power  ceases,  that  the  natural  chemical  laws 
resume  their  functions,  not  now  in  the  form  of  the  liv 
ing  man,  but  in  the  grave,  where  the  human  frame  is 
resolved  into  its  natural  elements.  The  chemical  laws 
resume  their  action  as  soon  as  life  departs,  and  those 
laws  continue  to  act  again  until  every  particle  that 
composed  the  human  frame  enters,  under  those  laws, 
into  new  inorganic  combinations,  or  until,  under  some 
new  principle  of  life,  vegetable  or  animal,  the  process  is 
arrested  midway,  and  new  forms  of  life  appear.  All 
over  the  earth,  therefore,  on  the  land,  in  the  waters,  in 
the  air,  nothing  is  more  common  than  that  what  are 
called  the  "  fixed  and  uniform  laws  of  nature,"  those 
laws  which  Mr.  Hume  informs  us  "  a  firm  and  unalter 
able  experience  has  established,"  are,  in  fact,  suspended 
— "violated" — held  in  check  and  abeyance — by  this 
principle  of  life,  where  life  is  the  only  antecedent  in 
the  result.  That  a  higher  power  than  life  —  the  Life 
itself,  God  —  may  not  suspend  them ;  that  that  higher 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  183 

power  may  not  suspend  the  laws  which  regulate  life 
itsejf,  or  restore  it,  has  not  as  yet  been  established  by  a 
"firm  and  unalterable  experience." 

IY.  In  order  to  a  proper  understanding  of  the  sub 
ject,  it  is  necessary  also  to  take  into  consideration  the 
element  of  the  will,  and  the  power  consequent  on  that, 
in  reference  to  the  "  laws  of  nature."  However  fixed  and 
settled  those  laws  may  be,  the  power  of  the  will  in  man 
is  constantly  operating  to  suspend  or  interrupt  them, 
that  is,  constantly  producing  effects  which  are  not  to  be 
traced  to  regular  and  fixed  laws,  and  which  would  never 
be  produced  by  those  laws.  In  other  words,  the  effects 
are  not  produced  by  the  laws  of  matter,  but  the  laws  of 
matter  are,  for  a  time,  as  really  disturbed  as  in  the  case 
of  a  miracle,  and  fail  of  striking  us  as  being  as  remark 
able  and  perplexing  only  because  they  are  of  constant  oc 
currence.  It  might  be  said,  indeed,  that  the  will  itself 
is  subject  to  fixed  laws,  and  that,  after  all,  the  effects 
are  produced  by  regular  and  fixed  laws ;  but  it  is  not 
easy  to  demonstrate  that  point,  and  it  is  not  to  be  as 
sumed  that  this  is  so,  or  that  in  the  operations  of  the 
will  there  is  nothing  which  can  not  be  reduced  to  fixed 
and  unvarying  laws.  At  any  rate,  whatever  may  be 
true  on  that  point,  it  is  not  to  be  assumed  that  it  is  any 
more  true  in  reference  to  the  human  will  than  it  is  in 
reference  to  the  divine  will,  and  the  difficulty  in  the 
one  case  is,  as  to  the  point,  the  same  as  in  the  other. 
In  either  case  it  is  the  introduction  of  a  new  power, 
apart  from  all  force  in  the  mere  physical  laws  of  na 
ture,  which  are  regarded  as  so  settled  and  fixed — "  the 
work  of  an  agent  wholly  independent  of  those  laws, 
and  who,  therefore,  neither  obeys  nor  disobeys  them." 
For  the  time  being,  so  far  as  the  result  is  concerned, 
the  new  agent,  or  the  new  power,  sets  aside  or  sus- 


184  LECTURES    ON   THE 

pends  the  operation  of  those  laws,  and  the  result  in  the 
case  is  to  be  traced  to  the  new  and  independent  power. 
Whether  God  has  reserved  to  himself  the  right  to 
interfere  with  the  regular  laws  of  matter,  as  he  has 
actually  conferred  it  on  man,  is  simply  a  question 
as  to  a  fact,  and  not  at  all  as  to  the  possibility  of  the 
thing. 

When  a  man,  by  the  exertion  of  his  will,  raises  his 
arm,  or  walks,  or  lifts  a  weight  from  the  ground,  he,  in 
each  case,  suspends  or  overcomes,  for  the  time,  the  law 
of  gravitation,  so  far  as  he  produces  an  effect  which  is 
not  to  be,  and  which  can  n<3t  be  traced  to  that  law — an 
effect  which  that  law  of  gravitation  could  never  in  any 
circumstances  produce,  and  which  all  the  principles 
involved  in  the  law  of  gravitation  combine  to  pre 
vent,  and  the  effect  produced  is  to  be  accounted  for 
wholly  by  a  power  above  and  regardless  of  it  —  the 
power  of  the  will ;  and  in  estimating  the  "  experience" 
of  the  world  in  reference  to  Mr.  Hume's  argument,  we 
are  to  take  that  part  into  the  account  as  an  important 
and  a  very  common  part  of  the  "  experience"  of  man 
kind —  a  matter  of  "  experience"  quite  as  common  as 
that  pertaining  to  the  "  firm  and  unalterable  experi 
ence  which  has  established  those  laws."  When  a  man 
of  his  own  will  throws  a  stone  into  the  air, "  the  motion 
of  the  stone,  as  soon  as  it  has  left  his  hand,  is  determ 
ined  by  a  combination  of  purely  natural  laws,  partly  by 
the  attraction  of  the  earth,  partly  by  the  resistance  of 
the  air,  partly  by  the  magnitude  and  direction  of  the 
force  by  which  it  was  thrown."  But  by  what  law  came 
it  to  be  thrown  at  all  ?  By  what  law  of  nature — a  law 
"fixed  by  an  unalterable  experience" — did  it  happen 
that  it  left  its  quiet  bed  on  the  ground ;  that  the  prin 
ciple  of  inertia  was  overcome ;  that  the  law  of  gravita- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  185 

tion  which  held  it  there,  and  would  have  held  it  there 
forever,  was  interrupted,  and  that  it  commenced  its 
course  through  the  air  ?  Neither  the  law  of  gravita 
tion  by  itself,  nor  all  the  laws  of  nature  put  together, 
would  ever  have  caused  it  to  leave  the  ground  and  com 
mence  that  flight  through  the  air ;  but  all  the  laws  of 
" nature"  in  fact,  combined  to  resist  this,  as  really  as 
the  laws  of  "  nature"  combined  to  resist  the  raising  up 
of  Lazarus  to  life,  or  as  the  laws  of  "nature"  on  the  Sea 
of  Tiberias  combined  to  keep  up  the  storm,  and  to  re 
sist  the  power  of  Jesus,  who  commanded  the  winds  and 
the  waves  to  be  still.  It  remains  yet  to  be  proved,  not 
asserted,  that  when  God's  free  will  interposes  to  pro 
duce  effects  which  are  to  be  traced  to  that  will  alone, 
there  is  a  more  real  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature  than 
there  is  when  the  human  will  interposes  and  produces 
changes  which  are  to  be  traced  to  that  will  alone.  It 
may  be  further  added,  that  if  the  will  of  men  does  pro 
duce  such  disturbances  and  interruptions  of  the  laws  of 
nature,  then,  so  far  from  its  being  true,  as  Mr.  Hume  says, 
that  "  a  firm  and  unalterable  experience  has  established 
those  laws,"  it  is  true  that  there  is  almost  nothing  that 
is  more  liable  to  be  disturbed,  or  that  nothing  is  more 
common  than  that  there  are  effects  produced  which  are 
not  to  be  traced  to  those  laws,  but  where  the  only 
known  antecedent  is  will,  and  the  power  consequent  on 
will. 

V.  A  fifth  and  final  remark  on  the  subject  is,  that  the 
progress  of  our  world,  and,  as  far  as  we  know,  the  prog 
ress  of  the  universe,  has  not  been  under  the  operation 
of  regular  and  fixed  "  laws."  I  mean  that  there  are  ev 
idences  of  divine  interposition  apart  from  the  operation 
of  such  laws,  and  that  the  results  are  such  as  can  not 
be  traced  to  those  laws,  but  are  to  be  traced  to  a  direct 


186  LECTURES    ON   THE 

divine  interposition,  and  that,  therefore,  miracles  are  not 
in  themselves  absurd  or  impossible. 

There  are  two  methods  in  which,  subsequent  to  the 
act  of  creation,  the  existing  state  of  things  on  the  earth, 
and  in  the  universe  at  large,  as  far  as  we  know,  has 
been  produced:  the  one  is  by  development,  or  the 
growth  of  things  under  natural  laws ;  the  other  is  by 
the  introduction  of  a  new  order  of  things,  into  which  no 
former  state  naturally  runs,  or  which,  in  no  proper  sense, 
can  be  the  result  of  any  antecedents  in  nature,  but  which 
must  be  traced  to  a  mere  interposition  of  power. 

That  the  former — that  of  development — exists,  no  one 
can  doubt ;  and  it  can  not  be  denied  that  this  is  the  reg 
ular  and  ordinary  course  of  things ;  that  is,  that  there 
is  something  which,  in  the  order  of  nature,  precedes  the 
effect;  which  is  the  cause  of  it;  which  measures  it; 
which  contains  in  embryo  all  that  is  produced.  Thus 
the  germ  of  the  acorn  is  developed  into  the  oak,  and  the 
ovum  is  developed  into  the  crocodile,  the  ostrich,  and 
the  barn-yard  fowl ;  thus  the  slumbering  powers  of  the 
infant  are  developed  into  the  physical  strength,  the 
poetic  genius,  or  the  eloquence  of  the  man.  In  all  such 
cases  there  is  nothing  produced  which  is  not  a  fair  un 
folding  of  what  existed  in  the  germ ;  nothing  which  is 
the  result  of  mere  power  ab  extra.  The  precise  limit 
of  this  class  of  operations  in  nature  has  not  yet  been 
fixed.  It  is  well  known  that  attempts  have  been  made 
to  explain  all  the  phenomena  of  the  universe  on  this 
principle.  The  author  of  the  "  Vestiges  of  Creation"  re 
gards  this  as  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  origin  of 
the  worlds  and  systems  which  compose  the  universe ; 
Dr.  Darwin  supposes  that  all  the  varieties  of  species  on 
the  earth  can  be  explained  on  this  principle ;  and  in  this 
manner  it  is  supposed,  as  may  be  true,  that  new  worlds 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  187 

are  constantly  forming,  and  that  the  nebulous  masses 
are  now  resolving  themselves  into  suns  and  stars.  Per 
haps  it  is  not  within  the  range  of  the  human  powers  to 
determine  the  exact  limits  of  this  process,  and  to  do  it 
is  not  material  for  any  purpose  connected  with  revealed 
religion. 

But,  while  we  would  concede  all  that  true  science 
can  ask  on  this  point,  it  is  still  a  fact  that  this  has  not 
been  the  sole  or  the  main  agency  by  which  our  world 
exists  as  it  is  now.  In  very  many  respects  it  has  made 
advances — has  reached  higher  elevations  from  age  to 
age — by  some  new  power r,  the  result  of  creative  and  su 
pernatural  agency,  that  has  come  in,  over  and  beyond 
any  thing  that  can  be  regarded  as  the  result  of  devel 
opment.  That  power  lifts  the  world  to  a  higher  level, 
and  can  be  best  explained  on  the  supposition  that  it  is 
by  direct  divine  interposition ;  that  is,  that  the  antece 
dent  in  the  case  is  the  will  and  the  power  of  God, 
whether  that  be  called  miracle  or  not. 

(a)  The  ordinary  law  is,  as  is  claimed  by  the  Atheist 
for  the  whole,  by  a  gradual  accumulation  and  develop 
ment.  Men  record  and  preserve  the  results  of  past  ex 
perience.  The  world  gathers  up  the  lessons  of  the  ex 
periments  that  are  macle ;  the  history  of  failures  and 
successes;  the  inventions  in  the  arts  and  the  discov 
eries  in  science ;  the  issues  of  the  experiments  to  abridge 
labor,  to  facilitate  travel,  to  promote  domestic  comfort, 
to  till  the  soil,  to  improve  the  wild  fruits,  trees,  and 
grasses ;  in  building  houses,  in  machinery,  in  navigation. 
In  like  manner  the  world  treasures  up  the  wisdom  of 
sages ;  the  results  of  the  battles  for  freedom ;  the  ex 
periments  made  in  government ;  the  methods  of  educa 
tion  ;  the  rules  of  prudence  that  regulate  domestic  life. 
All  these  enter  into  civilization,  and  we  now,  in  this  age 


188  LECTURES    ON   THE 

and  land,  are  enjoying  the  avails  of  all  the  past  wisdom, 
all  the  sacrifices,  all  the  toils  and  perils,  and  all  the  dis 
coveries  of  past  ages.  Every  philosopher  has  thought 
for  us ;  every  legislator  has  legislated  for  us ;  every 
traveler  has  traveled  for  us ;  every  explorer  of  unknown 
lands  and  seas  has  done  it  for  us ;  every  patriot  has 
fought  and  bled  for  us ;  every  martyr  has  died  for  us. 
Every  one  who  has  stricken  out  an  invention  in  the  arts 
has  done  it  for  us,  and  every  one  who  has  made  a  dis 
covery  in  science  has  done  it  for  us.  Faust  in  the  art  of 
printing;  Gioia,  of  Amalfi, in  discovering  the  properties 
of  the  magnet ;  Galileo  in  constructing  the  telescope ; 
Watt  and  Fulton  in  applying  steam  to  the  purposes  of 
manufactures,  or  to  travel  by  sea  and  by  land ;  Frank 
lin,  who  "  wrested  the  lightning  from  heaven  and  the 
sceptre  from  tyrants,"*  and  Morse,  who  applied  the 
laws  of  electro  -  magnetism  to  the  communication  of 
thought,  did  it  for  us.  We  recline  on  beds  of  down, 
and  sit  down  at  tables  loaded  with  luxuries,  and  dwell 
in  houses  of  comfort  or  magnificence,  and  travel  rapidly 
and  safely  over  lands  and  seas,  and  breathe  the  pure  air 
of  freedom  as  the  result  of  the  wisdom  and  toil  of  all 
past  ages.  The  world  gathers  up  the  results  of  the 
past,  and  rises  gradually  to  a  'higher  elevation ;  from 
that  point  it  does  not  go  backward,  for  nothing  thus 
accumulated  that  is  valuable  is  suffered  to  be  lost. 

Society  and  the  world  in  this  respect  move  slowly ; 
for  often  dark  and  dreary  centuries  elapse  when  the 
world  seems  to  make  no  progress — like  those  slow  re 
volving  ages,  and  cycles  of  ages,  when  the  deposits 
were  made  in  the  waters  which  now  constitute  the 
rocks,  or  which,  upheaved  by  some  sudden  convul 
sion,  constitute  the  mountains,  and  bring  the  beds  of 
*  Eripuit  ccelis  fulmcn  sccptrumquc  tvrannis. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  189 

ancient  coal,  deposited  for  man,  to  the  surface  of  the 
earth. 

(b)  There  is  another  method  in  which  the  world  ad 
vances.  It  is  not  gradual,  but  sudden — per  saltum — by 
impulse,  not  by  development.  It  occurs  when  the  af 
fairs  of  the  world  are  to  be  put  on  a  higher  level ;  when 
the  slow  process  of  accumulation,  experience,  and  de 
velopment  would  not  meet  the  wants  of  the  world ; 
when  the  race  is  to  be  lifted  up  suddenly,  as  the  mount 
ains  were  lifted  up,  or  as  the  bed  of  the  ocean  was  sud 
denly  raised  to  become  the  abode  of  races  of  living 
beings.  Then  God  creates  some  great  genius  and 
brings  it  upon  the  earth.  Then  some  great  invention 
occurs  which  at  once*  puts  the  race  on  a  higher  level. 
Then  some  discovery  in  science  is  made  that  affects  at 
once  all  the  interests  of  society ;  that  opens  new  ave 
nues  of  trade ;  that  facilitates  commerce ;  that  diffuses 
intelligence ;  that  levels  mountains ;  that  exalts  valleys ; 
that  bridges  streams  or  even  oceans;  that  binds  the 
nations  into  one.  Then  a  new  level  is  reached  at  once, 
which  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things  would  not  have 
been  reached  for  centuries,  if  it  could  have  been  reached 
at  all.  The  world  rises  at  once  to  a  higher  plateau,  and 
moves  forward  on  that,  under  the  slow  law  of  accumu 
lation,  till  the  time  arrives  when,  by  some  new  discov 
ery  or  new  invention,  it  rises  still  higher,  never  again 
to  go  backward. 

The  immediate  and  efficient  antecedent  in  this  is 
the  will  and  the  power  of  God.  It  is  not  by  the  devel 
opment  of  a  germ ;  it  is  not  by  the  cultivation  and  ex 
pansion  of  that  which  before  existed  in  embryo.  Ge 
nius  and  talent  are  the  creation  of  God — created  when 
he  pleases ;  lodged  where  he  pleases ;  developed  under 
such  circumstances  as  he  chooses.  Be  it  poetry,  elo- 


190  LECTURES    ON   THE 

quence,  inventive  power,  skill  in  the  fine  or  the  useful 
arts,  it  is  alike  the  creation  of  God. 

It  is  creation — beginning  anew,  not  development — 
created,  not  called  into  existence  by  circumstances.  So 
God  made  the  mind  of  Plato,  of  Socrates,  of  Newton, 
of  Bacon,  of  Pascal,  of  Edwards,  of  Alfred,  Charle 
magne,  Fulton,  Cuvier,  Columbus,  Washington.  The 
bringing  of  such  minds  upon  the  earth  can  be  regarded 
as  in  no  proper  sense  the  result  of  such  a  "  firm  and  un 
alterable  experience  in  establishing  the  laws  of  nature" 
as  Mr.  Hume  speaks  of;  they  are  as  much  the  result  of 
a  divine  agency  as  the  creation  of  the  world,  or  as  the 
healing  of  the  blind  man  at  the  Pool  of  Bethesda. 

So,  too,  the  world  advanced,  as  geologists  now  tell 
us,  before  it  was  fitted  for  the  abode  of  man,  by  a  series 
of  successive  creations.  One  race  of  beings  was  swept 
away — not  developed  into  another.  Each  order  of 
monsters  had  its  day,  and  then  passed  off  the  stage  to 
give  place  to  a  higher  order.  The  essential  fact  on  the 
subject,  which  no  man  who  is  properly  informed  will 
deny,  and  which  is  now  stated  by  geologists  as  a  part 
of  the  teaching  of  their  science,  is,  that  entire  races 
were  swept  away,  and  were  succeeded  by  others  which 
were  in  no  sense  whatever  developments  of  the  former — 
new  creations  ;  new  forms  of  being  on  the  earth — crea 
tures,  or  forms  of  being  so  distinct  that  the  one  could 
not  have  lived  at  all  in  the  condition  in  which  the  earth 
then  was,  and  the  other  was  swept  away  because  the 
earth  had  become  fitted  for  a  higher  order  of  beings. 
The  old  monsters  —  the  Plesiosaurian  and  Ichthyosau- 
rian  races — have  no  successors  on  earth.  The  races  were 
swept  entirely  away,  and  all  that  remains  of  them  is 
found  in  the  rocks.  The  fossils  of  the  old  geological 
periods  reveal  successive  creations,  not  successive  devel- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  191 

opments.  So  man  appeared  at  last,  not  as  a  develop 
ment  of  the  ourang-outang  or  monkey,  but  as  a  new 
creation — brought  upon  the  stage  'by  creative  power 
when  the  earth  had  been  fitted  up  for  his  abode.  In 
all  science  there  is  probably  no  fact  better  established 
than  the  one  now  adverted  to,  that  the  races  were  en 
tirely  swept  off,  not  developed  into  new  forms  or  races, 
and  that  a  new  creation  appeared,  in  no  sense  a  resur 
rection  from  the  old,  and  that,  perhaps,  in  each  case, 
after  an  interval  of  millions  of  years. 

Thus  the  world  advances,  also,  by  some  new  inven 
tion  in  the  arts  that  can  in  no  proper  sense  be  regarded 
as  a  "  development"  of  a  previous  order  of  things,  or  as 
the  result  of"  fixed  and  certain  laws."  Such  inventions 
are  often  the  result,  perhaps  always,  of  a  suggestion 
that  comes  into  the  mind,  having  nothing  to  do  with 
any  thing  that  went  before,  that  can  be  traced  by  no 
law  of  association  to  any  previous  thought  in  the  mind, 
and  whose  origin  no  system  of  mental  philosophy  will 
explain.  The  suggestion  which  gives  birth  to  the  in 
vention  is  retained  in  the  mind  while  a  thousand  others 
are  dismissed ;  it  is  reflected  on ;  it  is  conned,  matured, 
experimented  on,  until  the  invention  appears  before  the 
world,  modifying  human  affairs,  raising  the  race  to  a 
higher  level,  lifting  it  up  on  a  new  steppe  or  plateau, 
along  which  it  travels,  or  by  the  help  of  which  it  rises 
higher,  until  some  newer  invention,  still  more  brilliant 
and  important  than  any  which  preceded,  shall  lift  the 
race  to  a  higher  level  still,  and  be  the  cause  of  a  still 
higher  advancement.  Thus  the  discoveries  of  the  art 
of  writing,  of  printing,  of  gunpowder  ;  of  the  properties 
of  the  magnet,  of  the  telescope,  of  the  microscope,  of  the 
application  of  steam,  of  the  telegraph,  have  successively 
modified  human  affairs,  and  put  the  condition  of  the 


192  LECTURES    ON   THE 

world  on  an  elevation  from  which  it  can  never  descend 
— not  by  "  fixed  laws ;"  not  by  "  development ;"  not  by 
a  "firm  and  unalterable  experience,"  but  by  a  new 
power. 

In  like  manner,  some  new  disease  sent  direct  from 
God  may  materially  modify  human  affairs.  The  "  Hack 
death"  that  reigned  in  Europe,  cutting  off,  as  has  been 
estimated,  during  the  six  years  of  its  continuance,  twen 
ty-five  millions,  or  a  fourth  part  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Europe,*  depopulating  entire  districts  of  country,  and 
spreading  consternation  every  where  —  in  what  sense 
was  that  a  development,  "  under  the  laws  of  a  firm  and 
unalterable  experience,"  as  Mr.  Hume  would  say  ?  The 
small-pox,  the  cholera — to  what  "  laws,"  thus  fixed  and 
settled  by  "  experience,"  are  they  to  be  traced  ?  Of  what 
previous  disease  were  they  the  development?  Nothing 
is  more  certain  than  that,  up  to  the  period  of  their  ap 
pearing,  the  "  experience"  of  the  world  —  of  the  whole 
world — was  against  the  small-pox  and  the  cholera, 
much  more  than  it  had  been  against  miraculous  and  su 
pernatural  agencies,  and,  according  to  the  argument 
which  I  am  examining,  all  belief  in  those  diseases  is  im 
possible  or  absurd. 

The  cases  to  which  I  have  thus  referred  show  that 
God  has  not  bound  or  pledged  himself  to  govern  the 
world  always,  and  in  all  circumstances,  by  the  fixed 
laws  of  nature ;  that  he  has  not  withdrawn  from  the 
world  and  left  it  to  do  its  work,  as  a  vast  machine,  by 
wheels,  and  springs,  and  cogs,  and  pulleys ;  that  he  has 
reserved  to  himself  the  right  to  interfere  when  he  has 
important  ends  to  accomplish,  by  his  own  free  will,  in 
some  manner  corresponding  to  the  fact,  though  far 
above  it,  that  we  thus,  by  our  will,  interfere  with  those 
*  Becker's  Epidemics  of  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  29. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  193 

laws;  that,  as  there  were  occasions  on  which  it  was 
proper  that  he  should  interfere  by  new  acts  of  creative 
power  in  the  old  geological  periods  of  the  world,  and 
when  the  present  order  of  things  was  to  be  inaugu 
rated,  so  he  may  now  interpose  by  acts  of  creation  in 
the  distant  parts  of  the  universe  by  bringing  new  worlds 
into  being,  and  new  orders  of  creatures  upon  them ;  and 
that,  as  there  have  been  occasions  when  the  affairs  of  the 
world  were  to  be  raised  to  a  higher  elevation  by  the 
creation  and  endowment  of  some  mind  by  extraordinary 
powers,  or  by  some  brilliant  discovery  in  science  or  in 
vention  in  the  arts,  so  there  may  have  been  occasions  on 
which  it  was  proper  to  interfere  by  the  introduction  of 
a  new  religion  upon  the  earth,  and  by  attesting  its  ori 
gin  as  from  himself— by  so  far  putting  forth  his  own 
will  and  power,  independent  of  natural  laws,  and  sus 
pending  those  laws  for  the  time,  as  to  open  the  eyes  of 
the  blind,-  to  unstop  the  ears  of  the  deaf,  to  cause  the 
lame  man  to  leap  as  an  hart,  and  to  raise  the  dead  from 
their  graves. 

Such  are  the  facts  in  regard  to  miracles,  as  I  under 
stand  them,  and  such  is  the  state  of  the  evidence  on  the 
subject  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

I 


194  LECTURES    ON   THE 


LECTURE  VI. 

THE    ARGUMENT    FOE    THE    TRUTH    OF    CHRISTIANITY,   IN 
THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY,  FROM  PROPHECY. 

THE  argument  for  the  truth  of  Christianity  or  re 
vealed  religion,  as  derived  from  prophecy,  is  different, 
in  some  very  important  respects,  from  the  argument  as 
derived  from  miracles. 

(1.)  First.  The  miracles  on  which  reliance  is  placed 
occurred  in  past  ages — in  periods  now  far  remote.  It 
is  not  claimed  by  the  friends  of  the  Bible  that  miracles 
are  now  performed  to  establish  its  truth.  Even  in  those 
portions  of  the  "  visible  Church"  where  it  is  claimed  that 
miracles  are  still  performed,  it  is  not  maintained  that 
they  are  performed  to  confirm  the  general  truths  of  rev 
elation  ;  to  demonstrate  that  the  prophets  and  apostles 
were  sent  from  God  ;  or  to  prove  that  the  Christian  re 
ligion,  as  distinguished  from  other  religions,  is  true,  but 
that  they  are  wrought  in  favor  of  some  dogma  of  the 
Church ;  or  in  honor  of  the  memory  of  some  particular 
saint ;  or  to  show  that  the  church  in  which  such  mira 
cles  occur  is  the  true  Church,  in  contradistinction  from 
other  associations  which  claim  to  be  parts  of  the  true 
Church ;  in  honor  of  the  faith,  or  of  the  priesthood,  of 
some  one  branch  of  the  Church  of  God. 

The  miracles,  however,  on  which  reliance  is  placed 
for  the  proof  of  Christianity  as  such,  occurred  in  a  pe 
riod  now  far  in  the  past ;  they  were  witnessed  by  com 
paratively  few  persons;  and  the  evidence  that  they 
were  performed  at  all  comes  to  us  under  all  the  disad- 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  195 

vantages  of  testimony  transmitted  through  successive 
generations.     We  ourselves  have  not  been  permitted  to 
witness  the  performance  of  a  miracle  in  attestation  to 
the  truth  of  our  religion,  nor,  when  urging  the  claims 
to  the  divine  origin  of  that  religion  from  miracles,  and 
seeking  to  convince  our  fellow-men  of  its  truth  on  that 
ground,  can  we  appeal  to  one  actually  wrought  in  their 
presence  or  in  our  own,  as  furnishing  such  a  demonstra 
tion.     It  was,  therefore,  not  difficult  to  construct  the 
plausible  argument  of  Mr,  Hume  against  miracles — an 
argument  so  plausible  that  to  this  day  it  has  not  been 
found  easy  to  detect  its  sophistry.     But,  whether  that 
argument  was  well  founded  or  was  a  sophism,  no  such 
sophism,  and,  at  any  rate,  no  such  argument,  can  be  sug 
gested  in  regard  to  prophecy.     It  is  a  subject  which  we 
can  investigate  as  eye-witnesses  ourselves.     We  have 
the  prophecy  before  us  in  fixed  and  permanent  language, 
to  be  interpreted  on  principles  universally  recognized 
in  the  interpretation  of  language,  and  where  the  friends 
and  the  foes  of  the  religion  in  defense  of  which  they  are 
adduced  are  supposed  to  be  equally  qualified  to  under 
stand  the  use  of  language  and  the  rules  of  exegesis,  and 
to  have  an  equal  right  to  apply  those  rules.     The  very 
words  of  the  prophecy  may  be  carefully  studied,  and 
may  be  calmly  compared  with  the  facts  to  which  it 
is  claimed  they  are  applicable.     It  is  not  like  a  mira 
cle,  to  be  seen  at  the  exact  moment  of  the  occurrence 
or  not  at  all ;  it  is  not  like  the  word,  the  look,  or  the 
touch,  that  restores  sight  to  the  blind,  or  that  heals 
diseases;  it  is  not  like  the  voice  that  stills  the  tem 
pest,  or  that  raises  the  dead,  and  then  is  silent  for 
ever.     The  witnesses  of  such  scenes,  and  the  actors  in 
such  scenes,  pass  from  the  world  in  a  single  generation, 
nor  can  we  call  them  on  the  "  stand"  again  to  subject 


196  LECTURES    ON   THE 

them  to  a  rigorous  "  cross-examination."  In  prophecy, 
however,  every  thing  can  be  examined  with  all  the 
calmness  required  by  the  principles  of  the  inductive 
philosophy.  All  is  before  us  that  there  is  in  the  case, 
and  will  remain  there  as  long  as  we  please.  The  words 
of  the  prophecy  and  the  facts  are  neither  of  them  evan 
escent,  and  are  as  fixed  as  the  substances  which  the 
chemist  coolly  examines  in  his  laboratory,  or  as  the 
stars  on  which  the  astronomer  gazes,  night  after  night, 
at  his  leisure. 

(2.)  Second.  In  the  argument  from  prophecy  there 
can  be  no  doubt  about  the  facts  in  the  case.  In  the  ar 
gument  from  miracles,  the  main  point  of  the  inquiry  re 
lates  to  the  facts  themselves.  If  the  alleged  facts  are 
admitted  to  have  occurred — if  Lazarus  was  actually 
raised  from  the  dead — there  would  be  no  difference  of 
opinion  that  would  embarrass  us  in  regard  to  the  ar 
gument  ;  that  is,  that  it  was  an  event  produced  by  the 
immediate  power  and  will  of  God,  irrespective  of  nat 
ural  laws.  The  whole  effort  of  infidelity,  therefore, 
in  regard  to  a  miracle,  is  to  set  aside  the  evidence 
that  the  fact  occurred,  not  to  deny  the  force  of  the 
argument  derived  from  it  if  the  fact  is  established. 
In  prophecy,  the  argument  assumes  a  different  form. 
Respecting  the  main  facts  in  the  case  there  can  be 
no  question,  and  if  there  w^ere  a  question,  it  could  be 
readily  examined  and  determined.  If  any  man  doubts 
whether  Jerusalem  and  the  Temple  were  destroyed, 
he  has  only  to  look  into  Josephus  or  Gibbon  to  sat 
isfy  his  mind  of  the  fact.  If  he  doubts  whether  Baby 
lon,  Tyre,  Petra,  or  Mneveh  are  in  ruins,  he  has  only 
to  look  into  Volney,  or  Burckhardt,  or  Maundrell,  or 
Layard,  or  to  go  to  the  places  of  their  former  mag 
nificence,  and  seat  himself  amidst  the  ruins  of  their 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  107 

grandeur,  and, "  book  in  hand,"  compare,  at  his  leisure, 
their  present  state  with  the  predictions  in  the  prophets. 
He  may  take  his  own  time  for  the  examination ;  he  may 
look  at  the  ruins  fragment  by  fragment,  and  compare*, 
with  the  minutest  and  most  patient  detail,  the  facts  be 
fore  him  with  the  statements  in  the  prophets.  He  may 
sit  down  to  the  argument  with  as  much  coolness  as  he 
would  to  a  mathematical  demonstration,  and  survey  the 
evidence  as  calmly  as  he  does  that  which  enters  into 
the  inductive  philosophy.  In  a  miracle,  a  voice  spake 
loud,  solemn,  and  clear,  as  when  the  tempest  was  hushed 
on  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  or  when  Lazarus  was  raised  from 
the  grave,  and  then  the  voice  died  away.  In  prophecy, 
a  voice  speaks  still  from  solitary  Petra,  from  ruined 
Tyre,  from  the  site  of  the  Temple  in  Jerusalem,  from 
the  exhumed  palaces  of  Nineveh,  from  the  midst  of  the 
"  wild  beasts  of  the  desert,"  and  the  "  doleful  creatures," 
and  the  "  owls  that  dwell"  in  Babylon,  and  the  "  satyrs 
that  dance  there,"  and  the  "  wild  beasts  that  cry"  in  its 
"  desolate  houses,"  and  the  "  dragons  in  its  pleasant 
palaces,"*  to  all  generations.  From  their  deep  silence ; 
from  the  palaces  where  once  was  the  sound  of  the  viol 
and  the  harp ;  from  the  forsaken  temples,  an  utterance 
is  heard  still  responding  to  the  ancient  prophetic  warn 
ing.  We  hear  the  cry  of  the  "  bittern"  and  the  "  owl" 
proclaiming  the  fulfillment  of  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah ; 
and  the  "dance  of  the  satyr"  and  the  " cry  of  the  wild 
beasts"  invite  the  world  to  contemplate  the  truth  of  the 
ancient  predictions. 

(3.)  Third.  There  is  another  point  of  difference  be 
tween   miracles  and  prophecy.     The   proof  from  the 
former  was  complete  in  the  time  of  the  apostles ;  the 
proof  from  the  latter  is   increased  and  strengthened 
*  Isaiah,  xiii.,  21,  22. 


198  LECTUKES    ON  THE 

from  age  to  age,  and  will  be  augmenting  to  the  end  of 
the  world.  It  is  accumulating  with  every  new  fact  in 
history,  and  will  go  forward  to  meet  the  incredulity  of 
all  coming  times.  In  this  respect  these  two  sources  of 
evidence  bear  some  resemblance  to  the  demonstration 
of  God's  wisdom  and  power  in  the  creation  of  the  world, 
and  in  its  providential  government.  The  act  of  crea 
tion,  grand  and  awful,  when  the  "  morning  stars  sang 
together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy,"  was 
an  impressive  demonstration  of  his  power,  a  stupendous 
miracle  that  put  the  question  of  his  omnipotence  for 
ever  to  rest,  as  the  stilling  of  the  tempest  and  the 
resurrection  of  Lazarus  did  that  of  the  Savior.  But 
the  wisdom  of  God,  and  the  goodness  of  God,  and  the 
mercy  of  God,  shine  forth  from  age  to  age,  and  the  ar 
gument  is  presented  fresh  and  new  to  each  generation. 
The  evidence  is  repeated  with  each  revolving  year; 
with  each  returning  season  ;  with  each  opening  flower ; 
with  the  running  stream;  with  the  dews  of  the  morn 
ing  and  the  zephyrs  of  the  evening ;  and  with  the  con 
version  and  salvation  of  each  penitent  sinner,  as  the 
evidence  of  the  truth  of  religion  from  prophecy  meets 
each  coming  generation,  and  will  attend  the  race  until 
the  proclamation  "  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  be 
come  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord,  and  of  his  Christ ;  and 
he  shall  reign  forever  and  ever,"  shall  be  heard  through 
out  the  universe.* 

God  might  have  made  the  human  mind — might  have 
made  all  created  minds — so  as  to  foresee  the  future  as 
well  as  to  remember  the  past.  In  the  nature  of  things 
there  is  no  more  difficulty  in  the  one  case  than  in  the 
other  ;  and,  at  all  events,  no  one  can  prove  that  this  is 
impossible.  God's  own  mind  is  thus  constituted,  if  it 
*  Rev.,  xi.,  15. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  199 

be  proper  to  apply  the  words  future  and  past  to  him  ; 
and,  in  creating  other  minds  in  the  "  image"  of  his  own, 
it  was,  and  must  have  been,  a  matter  dependent  on  his 
will  and  wisdom  whether  they  should  be  endowed  in 
the  same  manner. 

Man  was  made  in  the  "  image"  of  God.  In  the  knowl 
edge  of  the  past,  or  in  retaining  the  memory  of  the  past, 
we  see  clearly  that  he  was,  in  this  respect,  made  in  the 
"  image"  of  his  Creator.  If  he  had  been  endowed  with 
the  power  of  looking  into  the  future,  the  fact  that  he 
bore  the  "  image"  of  his  Creator  would  have  been  still 
more  apparent  and  striking.  In  the  purpose  to  create 
him  in  his  "  image,"  it  was  for  God  himself  to  judge  how 
far  that  "  image,"  in  respect  to  power,  and  knowledge, 
and  wisdom,  in  treasuring  up  the  memory  of  the  past, 
and  in  anticipating  the  future,  was  to  be  extended. 
Obviously  there  must  be  a  limit  in  all  these  things  im 
measurably  this  side  of  his  own  infinity,  whatever  might 
be  the  capacity  of  man  for  extending  this  in  an  indefi 
nite  approximation  in  the  future  toward  the  infinity  of 
God.  There  are  lines  which  approach  each  other  for 
ever,  but  which  never  meet. 

In  regard  to  events  lying  in  the  past  and  in  the  fu 
ture,  God  chose,  in  making  man,  that  he  should  be  en 
dowed  with  the  power  of  retaining  the  one,  but  with  no 
power  of  looking  directly  into  the  other ;  as  he  chose,  in 
regard  to  power,  that  that  power  on  the  part  of  man 
should  extend  only  to  those  things  which  pertain  to 
natural  or  physical  laws,  retaining  the  power  above 
those  laws  of  creating  or  destroying  —  the  power  of 
miracles  —  to  himself.  This  arrangement,  among  other 
results,  lays  the  foundation  for  furnishing  a  proof  of  a 
divine  revelation,  on  the  one  hand  by  miracles,  and  on 
the  other  by  prophecy — the  power  of  setting  aside  the 


200  LECTURES    ON   THE 

ordinary  laws  of  nature  at  his  pleasure  in  the  one  case, 
and  the  power,  in  the  other  case,  of  foretelling  what  man 
otherwise  could  never  know. 

There  were  reasons,  quite  obvious  in  the  main,  why 
this  should  be  so  in  respect  to  past  and  future  events. 

On  the  one  hand,  in  reference  to  the  past,  it  was  of 
the  highest  importance  to  the  well-being  of  man,  if  not 
to  his  very  existence,  to  the  progress  of  society,  to  all 
just  views  of  responsibility,  to  the  formation  of  his  own 
character,  that  he  should  be  so  endowed  as  to  gather 
up  and  retain  the  past — the  past  in  his  own  individual 
experience  ;  the  past  in  the  progress  of  society.  Char 
acter  is  formed  in  this  way  by  availing  ourselves  of  our 
past  attainments  and  past  experience.  Responsibility 
rests  on  this,  for  there  could  be  no  just  and  adequate 
views  of  retribution  if  all  our  thoughts,  and  plans,  and 
words,  and  deeds  were  at  once  effaced  forever,  as  the 
figures  and  letters  that  we  trace  in  the  sand  on  the  sea 
shore  are  by  the  next  wave.  To  all  just  notions  of  re 
sponsibility,  our*  thoughts,  and  words,  and  deeds  must 
be  as  if  "  they  were  graven  with  an  iron  pen  and  lead 
in  the  rock  forever"  (Job,xix.,  24).  Society  makes  prog 
ress  in  this  way  by  treasuring  up  the  accumulated  wis 
dom  of  the  past  —  the  results  of  all  happy  inventions, 
of  all  struggles  for  freedom,  of  all  improvements  in  the 
arts,  and  of  all  the  profound  sayings  of  sages  and  phi 
losophers.  The  present  state  of  the  world  in  civiliza 
tion,  in  science,  in  the  arts,  in  domestic  comforts,  in  the 
enjoyment  of  liberty,  in  religion,  is  the  result  of  the  fact 
that  man  is  endowed  with  the  faculty  of  memory. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  would  have  been  equal  dis 
advantages  in  thus  endowing  man  in  regard  to  the  fu 
ture,  enabling  him  to  see  the  future  as  he  can  retain 
the  past.  Such  an  arrangement  would  have  done  much 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  201 

to  stifle  effort  and  to  weaken  the  stimulus  to  enterprise 
and  exertion,  for  much  of  that  effort  and  that  stimulus 
depends  on  the  fact  that  a  thing  is  unknown  but  may 
be  known;  that  a  discovery  may  be  made  that  will 
contribute  to  wealth  or  fame ;  and  that  the  human  pow 
ers  may  find  employment  and  pleasure  in  the  discovery. 
Thus  the  young  are  stimulated  to  make  attainments  in 
literature  and  science,  because  there  are  vast  fields  yet 
unexplored,  and  to  a  noble-minded  youth  it  is  all  the 
better  if  not  a  ray  of  light  has  been  shed  upon  them ; 
nor  would  such  a  youth  thank  any  one  to  stop  the 
career  of  noble  thought  and  the  path  of  discovery  by 
pouring  down  a  flood  of  light  on  all  those  regions,  so 
that  no  more  should  be  left  for  the  efforts  of  honorable 
ambition.  It  was  this  which  animated  Columbus  when 
the  prow  of  his  vessel  first  crossed  the  line  beyond 
which  a  ship  had  ever  sailed,  and  plunged  into  unknown 
seas.  Every  wave  that  was  thrown  up  had  a  new  in 
terest  and  beauty  from  the  fact  that  its  repose  had  nev 
er  been  disturbed  before  by  the  keel  of  a  vessel ;  and 
when  his  eye  first  saw  the  land,  and  he  prostrated  him 
self  and  kissed  the  earth,  his  glory  was  at  the  highest, 
for  he  saw  what  in  all  ages  was  unknown  before.  So 
we  are  every  where  stimulated  and  animated  by  the 
unknown,  by  what  is  before  us  that  may  be  gained,  by 
the  fields  of  new  thought  which  man  has  never  ex 
plored.*  Farther,  what  a  world  of  sorrow  might  this 
be  if  we  saw  the  future  as  we  remember  the  past !  Who 
would  desire  it  ?  Who  would  be  willing  that  all  that 
is  to  occur  to  him  or  to  his  family  during  a  single  year 
should  be  spread  out  before  him  on  the  first  day  of  the 

*  Avia  Pieridum  peragro  loca,  nullius  ante 
Trita  solo ;  juvat  integros  accedere  fonteis  ; 
Atque  haurire. — Lucretius. 
12 


202  LECTURES    ON   THE 

year?  How  many  dwellings  would  such  a  knowledge 
fill  with  grief !  If,  at  the  beginning  of  a  year,  we  knew 
that  a  beloved  child  was  to  sicken  and  die  ;  if  the  scene 
was  all  spread  out  before  us  ;  if  we  saw  the  exact  prog 
ress  of  the  disease,  and  knew  the  exact  hour  when  it 
would  terminate  fatally,  how  sad  would  be  our  feelings 
as  we  looked  on  that  child ;  how  sad  to  us  the  weeks, 
and  days,  and  hours,  as  the  fatal  hour  drew  on !  How 
many  dwellings  in  the  land  would  be  filled  with  grief, 
and  how  many  would  be  the  sorrows  which  would  be 
added  to  a  now  wretched  world  ! 

God,  therefore,  while  he  has  so  far  made  us  after  his 
own  "  image"  that  we  can  retain  the  memory  of  the 
past,  has  mercifully  limited  our  endowments  in  the  oth 
er  direction,  and  hidden  the  future,  in  a  great  measure, 
from  our  view. 

Yet,  while  this  is  true  as  a  great  law,  it  is  to  be  re 
marked,  and  the  purpose  of  this  argument  requires  es 
pecially  that  it  should  be  before  our  minds  in  order 
that  we  may  understand  exactly  what  prophecy  is,  that 
there  are  certain  endowments  of  the  hnman  mind  which 
have  reference  to  the  future,  and  it  is  material  so  to  dis 
tinguish  them  as  to  show  that  they  do  not  amount  to 
the  idea,  or  invade  the  province  of  prophecy,  or  to  show 
how  prophecy  is  distinguished  from  those  endowments. 

The  powers  of  the  human  mind,  inspired  or  unin 
spired,  as  they  are  exercised  in  this  world  in  relation  to 
the  future,  must  be  arranged  under  the  following  heads : 
Hope,  mathematical  calculation,  sagacity,  prophecy. 

Hope. — This  has  relation,  indeed,  to  the  future,  but 
not  to  the  knowledge  of  the  future.  It  predicts  noth 
ing;  it  makes  nothing  certain.  Hope,  founded  on  a 
probability  or  possibility  in  regard  to  the  future,  on 
the  common  course  of  human  events,  or  on  special  prom- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  203 

ises,  does  much  indeed  to  stimulate  men  to  effort,  and 
to  cheer  a  dark  and  suffering  world,  but  it  does  nothing 
to  determine  the  future,  except  as  that  future  itself  is 
determined  by  efforts  inspired  by  hope.  It  in  itself 
makes  nothing  certain.  It  gilds  the  future,  indeed,  with 
much  that  is  bright,  but  with  that  which  is  imaginary, 
and  which  is,  therefore,  much  of  it  a  mere  illusion.  It 
makes  the  world  appear  brighter  than  the  reality,  and 
is  a  benevolent  arrangement  —  one  of  those  numerous 
things  which  occur  in  the  world,  often  underlying  other 
things,  which  show  that  the  Creator  of  the  world  is  a 
benevolent  Being,  and  intends,  at  the  same  time,  to 
stimulate  human  effort,  to  cheer  man  in  his  sad  and 
dark  path,  and  to  keep  before  him  the  prospect  of  a 
brighter  world  than  this.  It  is  not,  however,  a  decep 
tion.  Though  it  does  not  always  correspond  with  the 
reality,  though  the  anticipation  is  often  brighter  than 
the  result,  though  youth  is  cheered  and  stimulated 
more  than  age  is,  or  than  youth  would  be  if  it  had  a 
clear  view  of  the  reality  of  things,  it  is  not  a  designed 
illusion,  for  man  is  not  kept  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
there  may  be  disappointment,  and  no  promise  which 
God  has  made  in  the  arrangements  by  which  hope  is 
inspired  is  violated,  for  all  those  promises  are  made 
with  this  condition  well  understood,  and  none  which  he 
has  absolutely  made  ever  fail.  The  labor  of  the  hus 
bandman  may  fail;  the  ship  richly  freighted  may  en 
counter  a  storm  and  sink  in  the  ocean ;  health  may 
fail ;  life  may  be  cut  off  before  its  plans  are  developed 
and  its  hopes  matured ;  the  fig-tree  may  not  blossom, 
and  there  may  be  no  fruit  in  the  vines ;  the  labor  of  the 
olive  may  fail,  and  the  fields  may  yield  no  meat ;  the 
flock  may  be  cut  off  from  the  fold,  and  there  may  be 
no  hind  in  the  stalls  (Habakkuk,  iii.,  17) ;  yet  still,  on 


204  LECTURES    ON   THE 

the  average,  the  promises  of  hope  are  sufficiently  real 
to  stimulate  effort,  and  to  cheer  and  encourage  man; 
but  it  does  not  enable  him  to  penetrate  the  dark  fu 
ture,  and  to  tell  what  that  will  be. 

Mathematical  calculation. — Here,  such  is  the  stabil 
ity  of  the  laws  of  nature,  that  the  knowledge  of  the  fu 
ture,  within  the  sphere  of  such  calculations,  is  minute 
and  absolute,  provided  the  present  system  shall  remain, 
and  provided  God  shall  not  interfere  by  his  own  direct 
will  and  power  to  change  it.  To  neither  of  these  points 
does  it  extend.  But  within  its  own  sphere  it  is  certain, 
and  is,  except  prophecy,  the  most  absolute  knowledge 
which  we  have  of  the  future. 

In  this  we  can  not  go  beyond  what  the  case  will  jus 
tify  in  our  admiration  of  the  endowments  of  man.  The 
knowledge  thus  within  the  grasp  of  the  human  mind 
shows  perhaps  more  than  any  thing  else  his  wonderful 
greatness  and  power.  The  position  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  at  any  time,  however  remote  in  the  future ;  an 
eclipse  of  the  sun  or  moon ;  the  transit  of  a  star ;  the  re 
turn  of  a  comet  after,  in  a  wild,  eccentric  course,  it  has 
buried  itself  in  the  depths  of  ether,  and  traversed  for 
years  or  centuries  those  unfathomed  regions — all  these 
show  the  greatness  of  man ;  show  the  greatness  of  the 
God  who  made  him,  and  who  has  made  a  system  so  ac 
curate  in  its  movements,  and  so  vast  and  enduring. 

Yet  all  this  has  a  limit,  and  a  limit  far — far  inside  of 
what  prophecy  undertakes  to  do.  It  is  confined  to 
physical  laws.  It  leaves  out  the  whole  element  of  will 
— that  on  which  so  many  of  the  events  of  prophecy  ac 
tually  turn — the  will  of  princes,  of  statesmen,  of  war 
riors,  of  the  numberless  hosts  of  human  beings  engaged 
in  civil  affairs  or  in  battle,  whose  separate  purposes  may 
enter  into  the  result.  It  proceeds  on  the  supposition 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  205 

that  the  order  of  events  will  not  be  disturbed  by  the 
divine  will — a  thing  of  which  no  astronomer  can  be 
sure.  It  has  little — nothing  to  do  with  the  common  af 
fairs  of  life ;  with  the  things  which  enter  into  commerce, 
arts,  discoveries,  inventions,  improvements,  poetry,  elo 
quence,  and  song ;  with  the  duration  of  cities  and  em 
pires;  with  the  great  men  that  may  come  and  play 
their  part,  and  then  disappear.  Who  among  the  gifted 
men  of  our  race  can  foretell  these  things  ? 

Sagacity. — This  is  a  power  of  penetrating  the  future 
to  a  certain  extent,  given  to  man  for  important  pur 
poses  ;  a  power  on  which  much  of  the  success  of  the 
life  of  an  individual,  and  much  of  the  prosperity  of  na 
tions  may  depend.  It  has  every  evidence  of  being  a 
divine  arrangement,  for  it  lies  in  the  direction  of  ex 
alted  genius,  and  can  not  be  the  result  of  mere  educa 
tion,  training,  or  experience.  In  a  humble  form  it  ex 
ists  in  most  minds ;  it  is  quite  indispensable  to  the  suc 
cessful  prosecution  of  business ;  it  serves  much  to  dis 
tinguish  one  man  from  another  in  the  same  calling  in 
life.  The  success  of  one  merchant  above  another ;  the 
success  of  one  banker  above  another — nay,  the  success 
of  one  farmer  above  another,  may  as  often  be  traced  to 
that  sagacity  which  looks  into  the  future,  and  antici 
pates  the  changes  in  the  commercial  world  which  will 
be  likely  to  occur,  as  to  any  other  endowment.  In  its 
higher  forms,  as  in  cases  like  those  of  Burke  and  Can 
ning,  it  seems  almost  to  approach  the  region  of  inspira 
tion  and  prophecy.  In  its  humbler  forms,  and  perhaps 
in  its  higher  forms,  it  is  capable  of  cultivation  by  expe 
rience  ;  by  reading ;  by  an  increased  knowledge  of  the 
ordinary  course  of  events ;  by  a  calculation  of  probabil 
ities  ;  by  an  acquaintance  with  the  past.  The  states 
man  combines  his  knowledge  of  the  experience  of  the 
world  with  his  own  power  of  penetrating  the  future ; 


206  LECTURES    ON   THE 

the  sagacity  of  the  merchant  is  often  almost  the  mere 
result  of  large  and  long  observation  and  experience. 

In  either  case,  however,  it  never  rises  to  certainty ; 
it  is  never  prophecy.  It  makes  mention  of  no  names ; 
it  specifies  no  dates;  it  enters  into  no  particulars — no 
details.  It  draws  out  the  plans  of  no  battles  or  sieges 
on  land,  and  no  naval  conflicts ;  it  brings  no  actors  by 
name  on  the  stage ;  it  describes  no  burning  towns,  no 
wasted  fields,  no  permanent  desolations,  no  future  con 
dition  of  cities,  states,  or  empires.  Burke's  celebrated 
prediction  of  the  consequences  of  a  "  Regicide  Peace"  is 
of  the  most  general  character ;  enters  into  no  details ; 
anticipates  no  history  in  dates  and  names,  and  leaves 
no  impression  on  the  mind  of  what  the  details  would 
be.  In  one  of  the  most  splendid  passages  in  the  English 
language,  Macaulay  ventures  a  suggestion  in  regard  to 
the  time  when  London  may  be  a  scene  of  wide  desola 
tion,  and  imagines  an  inhabitant  of  New  Zealand,  on 
the  ruins  of  London  Bridge,  sketching  the  ruins  of  St. 
Paul's.  Speaking  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  he 
says,  in  that  passage  :  "  She  saw  the  commencement  of 
all  the  governments  and  of  all  the  ecclesiastical  estab 
lishments  that  now  exist  in  the  world,  and  we  feel  no 
assurance  that  she  is  not  destined  to  see  the  end  of 
them  all.  She  was  great  and  respected  before  the 
Saxon  had  set  foot  on  Britain — before  the  Frank  had 
passed  the  Rhine — when  Grecian  eloquence  still  flour 
ished  at  Antioch — when  idols  were  still  worshiped  in 
the  Temple  of  Mecca  j  and  she  may  still  exist  in  un- 
diminished  vigor  when  some  traveler  from  New  Zea 
land  shall,  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  solitude,  take  his  stand 
on  a  broken  arch  of  London  Bridge  to  sketch  the  ruins 
of  St.  Paul's."* 

*  Review  of  Ranke's  History  of  the  Popes.     Miscellanies,  vol.  iii., 
p.  320,  321. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  20 7 

This  is  splendid  writing ;  this  is  eloquence  of  lan 
guage;  this  is  sublime  in  the  description  of  what  might 
— of  what  may  occur.  But  it  is  not  prophecy.  If  he 
had  said  that  this  will  be,  it  would  be  prophecy ;  and  if 
he  had  gone  into  detail,  as  Isaiah  has  done  in  regard  to 
a  city  larger  in  its  area  than  even  modern  London,  and 
concerning  which,  at  the  time,  there  was  as  little  prob 
ability  that  it  would  be  a  "  vast  solitude"  as  there  is 
that  London  will  be ;  if  he  had  said,  as  Isaiah  does,  "  It 
shall  never  be  inhabited,  neither  shall  it  be  dwelt  in 
from  generation  to  generation ;  but  wild  beasts  of  the 
desert  shall  lie  there ;  and  their  houses  shall  be  full  of 
doleful  creatures ;  and  owls  shall  dwell  there,  and  satyrs 
shall  dance  there ;  and  the  wild  beasts  of  the  islands 
shall  cry  in  their  desolate  houses,  and  dragons  in  their 
pleasant  palaces;  I  will  make  it  a  possession  for  the 
bittern,  and  pools  of  water ;  and  I  will  sweep  it  with  the 
besom  of  destruction,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts"  (Isaiah, 
xiii.,  20-22 ;  xiv.,  23),  this  would  have  been  prophecy. 

Except  by  prophecy — by  direct  inspiration  of  God — 
the  power  of  man  in  regard  to  the"  future  is  limited  by 
those  things  which  have  now  been  adverted  to.  His 
desires,  indeed,  his  efforts  have  not  been  bounded  by 
these  things,  nor  has  he  been  satisfied  by  this  arrange 
ment;  for  there  is  no  one  thing  that  he  has  more 
longed  for,  or  for  which  he  has  struggled  more,  than  to 
penetrate  the  dark  veil  which  shuts  out  the  future,  and 
to  make  his  own  power  in  regard  to  the  future  corre 
spond  with  his  power  over  the  past.  By  the  interpret 
ation  of  dreams ;  by  consultation  of  the  stars ;  by  at 
tempting  to  make  compacts  with  the  dead  to  induce 
them  to  disclose  the  secret  which  is  supposed  to  be  in 
their  possession ;  by  mysterious  combinations  of  num 
bers  ;  by  oracles ;  by  torturing  nature  to  make  it  dis- 


208  LECTURES    ON   THE 

close  the  secret;  by  somnambulism;  by  spiritualism; 
by  the  flight  of  birds ;  by  inspecting  the  entrails  of  an 
imals  ;  by  the  supposed  visitations  of  the  gods,  and  the 
return  of  the  departed  to  the  earth,  men  have  sought  to 
set  aside  the  great  law  which  God  has  ordained  on  this 
subject,  but  in  vain.  Man  reaches  distant  worlds  by 
the  telescope;  he  whispers  so  as  to  be  heard  across 
continents,  sending  his  thoughts  beneath  the  waves  of 
the  ocean,  and  over  deserts  and  mountains ;  he  chron 
icles  the  centuries  lying  back  of  all  recorded  history, 
by  which  the  earth  was  slowly  moulded  to  be  the  resi 
dence  of  living  beings ;  he  marks  with  unerring  precis 
ion  the  movements  of  far  distant  worlds,  but  not  one 
thing  in  the  future,  even  that  which  is  nearest  to  him, 
can  he  learn ;  not  one  response  can  he  get  to  all  the 
modes  in  which  he  asks  the  question,  What  is  to  be  to 
morrow  f 

Prophecy  is  the  only  thing  which  discloses  that,  and 
to  that  we  now  turn  with  the  inquiry  whether,  to  any 
extent  and  for  any  purpose,  God  has  lifted  the  veil  and 
disclosed  the  future*  to  man  ?  If  he  has,  it  is  a  miracle, 
like  any  other  miracle.  The  power  to  disclose  the  fu 
ture,  like  the  power  to  create  a  world  or  to  raise  the 
dead,  is  beyond  the  power  of  man.  The  limitation  in 
the  one  case  is  in  regard  to  time;  in  the  other  in  re 
gard  to  power.  In  either  case,  all  beyond  is  of  God. 
The  one  is  miracle,  the  other  is  prophecy. 

The  following  things  are  essential  to  prophecy : 
First.  That  the  prediction  be  beyond  the  power  of 
man  in  penetrating  the  future ;  that  it  be  not  a  vision 
of  hope ;  that  it  be  not  the  result  of  a  mathematical 
calculation ;  that  it  be  not  within  the  limits  of  mere  po 
litical  sagacity.  The  inspiration  of  hope  is  not  proph 
ecy,  for  it  makes  nothing  certain.  The  calculation  of 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  209 

an  eclipse  is  not  prophecy,  for  it  depends  on  fixed  laws. 
The  suggestions  of  sagacity  are  not  prophecy,  for  they 
are  not  fixed  and  certain ;  they  give  no  dates,  no  names, 
no  details. 

Second.  It  must  be  demonstrated  that  the  prediction 
was  before  the  event.  Every  man  has  a  right  to  re 
quire  that  this  shall  be  put  beyond  suspicion. 

Third.  The  prediction  must  be  fairly  applicable  to 
the  event.  It  should  not  refer  to  one  of  many  things 
to  which  it  might  be  adjusted  with  equal  ease,  but  to 
one  thing,  and  so  definite  that  it  can  not  be  adjusted  to 
another,  except  as  that  other  may  be  an  unfolding  of  it. 
The  prediction  of  the  destruction  of  Babylon  must  be 
of  Babylon,  and  so  expressed  that  it  shall  describe  that 
city  in  its  future  ruin,  and  not  Tyre,  Nineveh,  Petra,  Je 
rusalem,  Rome. 

Fourth.  The  language  should  be  such  that  it  will  be 
unmistakable.  Whether  words  or  symbols  are  used, 
they  must  be  such  that  by  fair,  not  by  forced  interpret 
ation,  the  prediction  is  applicable  to  the  event.  The 
enemies  of  revelation  have  a  right  to  demand  this ;  its 
friends  are  bound  to  show  that  it  is  so. 

But  there  are  some  things  of  equal  clearness  which 
are  not  to  be  demanded,  and  which  are  essential  to  a 
just  view  of  the  subject,  but  which  are  not  as  likely  to 
be  conceded  as  these  would  be.  It  is  important  that 
we  have  a  clear  understanding  with  the  enemies  of  rev 
elation  in  regard  to  them  also. 

First.  In  order  to  prophecy  it  is  not  necessary  that 
there  should  be  an  exact  and  minute  specification  of 
names,  dates,  and  circumstances.  The  reasons  of  this 
are  obvious :  (a)  If  there  were  such  an  exact  specifica 
tion  it  would  be  possible  to  defeat  the  prophecy,  (b)  An 
event  can  be  designated  with  sufficient  certainty  with- 


210  LECTURES    ON   THE 

out  such  an  exact  specification  of  names,  dates,  and  cir 
cumstances,  (c)  A  predicted  event,  that  seems  obscure 
before  the  event  occurs,  may  become  clear  when  the 
event  is  accomplished.  Such  may  be  the  clearness  of 
the  event,  so  entirely  may  it  tally  with  the  prediction, 
so  plain  may  become  the  statements  in  the  prophecy 
that  seemed  to  be  obscure,  and  so  perfectly  may  the 
facts  in  the  event  harmonize  apparently  contradictory 
statements  in  the  prophecy,  that,  while  it  would  not 
have  been  easy  or  possible,  perhaps,  to  have  made  a 
statement  in  detail  beforehand  of  what  would  be,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  of  what  was  intended  in  the  prophecy. 
Thus,  for  illustration,  in  the  prophecies  respecting  the 
Messiah,  there  seemed  to  be  two  classes  of  predictions 
that  were  wholly  irreconcilable,  and  that  led  to  wholly 
different  expectations  of  what  he  would  be.  One  class 
described  him  as  a  man  in  humble  life  ;  a  man  of  sor 
rows  ;  a  man  rejected,  despised,  put  to  death,  buried. 
The  other  class  described  him  as  the  descendant  of 
David ;  as  one  who  would  occupy  his  throne ;  as  a 
prince  and  a  conqueror ;  as  triumphant ;  as  reigning ; 
as  setting  up  a  perpetual  kingdom ;  as  going  forth  to 
the  conquest  of  the  world  ;  as  triumphing  over  all  his 
foes ;  as  successful  and  glorious  in  his  work.  One  class 
of  the  prophecies  described  him  as  one  who  had  all  the 
susceptibilities  of  a  man,  and  who  was  subject  to  all  the 
infirmities  of  a  man ;  the  other  class  described  him  as 
the  "  mighty  God,"  and  the  "  Father  of  the  everlasting 
age"  (Isa.,ix.,  6).  The  Jews  naturally,  in  carrying  out 
their  ideas  of  national  pride  and  glory,  selected  the  lat 
ter  view,  and  anticipated  in  their  Messiah  an  illustrious 
prince  and  conqueror  —  one  who  in  his  reign  would 
surpass  even  the  magnificent  reigns  of  David  and  Sol 
omon.  They  were  never  able  when  he  appeared,  nor 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  211 

are  they  to  this  day,  to  blend  the  two  descriptions  in 
one  person.  The  Christian  sees  no  difficulty  in  the 
subject,  for  he  finds,  he  thinks,  all  these  things  united 
in  him  who, "  being  in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it  not 
robbery  to  be  equal  with  God,  but  made  himself  of  no 
reputation,  and  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  men ;  and 
being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  he  humbled  himself, 
and  became  obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the 
cross"  (Phil.,  ii,  6-8). 

What  is  here  stated  may  exist  to  some  extent  under 
any  circumstances,  and  in  the  plainest  descriptions,  from 
the  nature  of  the  human  mind,  and  from  the  necessity  of 
the  case.  A  description  of  a  person  that  we  have  not 
seen,  or  an  event  that  we  have  not  witnessed,  may  be 
very  obscure  before  the  person  is  seen  or  the  event  oc 
curs,  but  plain  enough,  and  so  plain  that  the  correspond 
ence  can  not  be  mistaken,  when  the  person  is  seen  or 
the  event  occurs.  Who  ever  obtained  any  correct  idea 
of  Niagara  Falls  by  a  description  ?  Who,  say  to  the 
most  polished  Greek  and  Roman  mind,  could  have  con 
veyed  by  mere  description  any  idea  of  a  printing-press, 
of  a  locomotive  engine,  of  the  magnetic  telegraph  ? 
Who  could  convey  to  one  born  blind  an  idea  of  the 
prismatic  colors,  or  to  the  deaf  an  idea  of  the  sounds 
of  the  great  organ  at  Harlaem  ? 

As  I  suppose  all  students  do,  I  had  formed  an  idea  of 
Rome  from  the  descriptions  which  I  had  read  in  my 
early  years.  I  had  grown  up  with  the  idea  until  it  be 
came  as  definite  in  my  own  mind  as  the  lanes,  and 
roads,  and  fields,  and  streams  of  the  quiet  country-place 
where  I  was  born.  I  could  have  drawn  out  a  map  of 
it,  and  could  have  located  the  Tiber,  and  the  Vatican, 
and  the  Forum,  and  the  Coliseum.  When,  some  years 
ago,  I  was  actually  there,  I  had  two  Romes  in  my  eye 


212  LECTUEES    ON   THE 

—the  Rome  of  my  youth  and  of  all  my  life,  and  the 
Rome  of  the  reality,  and  nothing  scarcely  could  have 
been  more  unlike  than  the  two.  Yet  the  Rome  of  the 
reality,  in  fact,  corresponded  with  all  the  descriptions 
that  I  had  read ;  all  those  accounts  were  blended  and 
combined  in  it ;  and  the  Rome  of  my  youthful  imagina 
tion  gradually  gave  way  to  the  reality,  so  that  I  can 
recall  it  no  more.  So  the  anticipations  of  the  Messiah 
grew  up  among  the  Hebrews.  A  distinct  conception 
of  him,  apparently  as  drawn  by  the  prophets,  was  form 
ed  in  the  national  mind.  When  the  reality  appeared, 
he  was,  therefore,  not  recognized  as  the  Messiah,  and 
was  rejected.  To  the  present  day  that  Messiah  of  the 
youth  of  the  Hebrew  people — the  Messiah  of  the  imag 
ination — is  before  the  unconverted  Hebrew  mind.  To 
the  converted  Jew — to  Saul  of  Tarsus — that  imaginary 
Messiah  passed  away,  and  the  Messiah  of  the  reality 
became  fixed  in  the  mind,  blending  all  the  ancient  de 
scriptions  in  harmony.  Paul,  I  think,  refers  to  this  illu 
sion  and  this  reality  when  he  says  of  himself,  "  Though 
we  have  known  Christ  after  the  flesh,  yet  now  hence 
forth  know  we  him  no  more"  (2  Cor.,  v.,  16). 

Second.  In  presenting  the  argument  from  prophecy, 
we  may  lay  out  of  view  the  fact  that  many  of  the  proph 
ecies  are  yet  difficult  and  obscure.  Undoubtedly  that 
may  be  so,  and  it  is  to  be  admitted  that  it  is  so.  To  a 
certain  extent,  for  the  reason  already  stated,  all  prophe 
cies  must  be  in  a  measure  obscure  until  they  are  fulfilled, 
and,  as  there  may  be  many  which  are  not  yet  fulfilled,  it 
is  not  to  be  denied  that  they  may  be  obscure.  But  this 
fact  does  not  affect  those  that  are  clear — clear  either  in 
the  terms  in  which  they  are  expressed,  or  made  clear 
by  the  fact  that  they  are  fulfilled.  They  stand  on  their 
own  basis,  and  are  to  be  interpreted  as  if  there  were  no 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  213 

other  prophecies,  whether  real  or  obscure,  true  or  false. 
Moreover,  the  fact  that  they  are  now  obscure  does  not 
make  it  certain  that  they  will  always  be  so,  or  that  even 
they  may  not,  at  some  future  time,  have  a  place  among 
those  predictions  so  clearly  fulfilled  as  to  show  that 
they  had  their  origin  in  God. 

It  may  be  remarked,  also,  that  what  is  now  affirmed 
respecting  prophecy  is  also  true  of  the  facts  respecting 
science,  or  of  knowledge  of  any  kind.  Many  of  the  real 
truths  of  science  are  to  us,  as  yet,  very  obscure,  very 
dim  and  shadowy.  They  seem  to  be  enveloped  in  a 
mist  which  we  can  not  penetrate.  They  are  not  de 
fined,  even  in  their  outlines,  fully  and  clearly.  There 
are  many  doubts,  even  in  the  best  cultivated  minds,  in 
regard  to  them.  The  age  of  the  world,  for  instance,  is 
one  such  point.  No  one  has  been  able  to  determine  it 
by  measuring  the  duration  of  the  various  periods  which 
geology  reveals  as  having  succeeded  each  other,  in  the 
formation  of  rocks,  and  soils,  and  seas,  since  the  creation, 
or  since  the  matter  of  the  earth  was  brought  into  being. 
Indeed,  no  approximation  has  been  made  to  this,  nor 
has  any  one  ventured  even  to  conjecture  how  long  this 
has  been.*  But  the  obscurity  on  this  point  in  no  wise 
affects  the  clearness  and  the  certainty  of  the  facts  which 
geology  has  disclosed  in  regard  to  the  changes  of  the 
earth.  The  evidence  of  each  one  of  these  rests  entirely 
on  its  own  basis,  quite  independent  of  the  inquiry  about 
the  times  which  have  elapsed  since  those  great  changes 
commenced.  Time,  too,  and  farther  inquiry  may  throw 
light  on  the  questions  which  are  still  obscure,  and  they 

*  "The  aetaa/lengths  of  these  ages  it  is  not  possible  to  determine 
even  approximately.  All  that  geology  can  claim  to  do  is  to  prove 
the  general  proposition  that  Time  is  long.'1'1 — Dana's  Text-book  of 
Geology,  p.  244. 


214  LECTURES    ON   THE 

may,  at  some  far-distant  period  in  the  future,  take  their 
place  among  the  clear  and  acknowledged  truths  of  sci 
ence,  as  the  now  obscure  prophecies  may  among  those 
that  are  plain. 

Third.  For  a  similar  reason,  we  may  lay  out  of  view 
the  question  about  the  interpretation  of  many  of  the 
prophecies  as  forced  and  fanciful.  Undoubtedly  they 
are  so,  and  it  is  a  great  abridgment  of  our  task  in  in 
terpreting  prophecy  that  we  are  not  required,  in  de 
fending  the  divine  origin  of  the  predictions  of  the  Bible, 
to  undertake  the  defense  of  those  interpretations.  For 
the  vagaries  of  the  human  mind  ;  for  the  weaknesses  of 
religionists,  however  amiable ;  for  idiosyncracies  among 
good  men ;  for  fanciful  theories  in  regard  to  interpreta 
tion;  for  the  failure  of  expectations  founded  on  such 
interpretations,  prophecy  itself  is  in  no  wise  responsi 
ble,  any  more  than  science  is  for  the  failure  of  the  ex 
periments  to  secure  perpetual  motion  or  to  construct  a 
flying  machine.  The  world  is  quite  full  of  Second  Ad 
vent  literature,  much  of  it  already  occupying  the  same 
place  in  our  libraries  which  the  ingenious  plans  for  se 
curing  perpetual  motion  or  constructing  flying  ma 
chines  do  in  the  Patent  Office,  but  these  no  more  affect 
the  reality  of  prophecy  than  those  abandoned  speci 
mens  of  visionary  ingenuity  and  skill  do  the  steam-boat 
or  the  telegraph. 

Fourth.  For  the  purpose  of  the  present  argument, 
also,  we  may  lay  out  of  view  the  manner  in  which  the 
sacred  writers  themselves  quote  the  prophecies  and  ap 
ply  the  language  of  the  Old  Testament  to  the  events  re 
corded  in  the  New,  under  the  general  form  of  quota 
tion,  "tva.  7r\r)p<i)$rj  (Matt.,  i.,  22  ;  ii,  15  ;  iv.,  14 ;  x:xi.,  4  ; 
xxvi.,  56  ;  xxvii.,  35  ;  Mark,  xiv.,  29 ;  John,  xii.,  38,  et 
soape).  In  saying  that  these  quotations  may  be  laid  out 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  215. 

of  view,  it  is  not  admitted  that  they  are  on  a  false  prin 
ciple,  or  that  they  can  not  be  vindicated,  but  that  they 
do  not  affect  the  real  question  about  prophecy.  If  it 
should  be  conceded  that  their  manner  of  making  these 
quotations  could  not  be  vindicated,  still  the  admission 
would  only  affect  the  question  of  their  own  inspiration, 
not  the  main  question  whether  there  are  prophecies  of 
whose  application  there  could  be  no  doubt.  The  sole 
inquiry  in  regard  to  the  passages  that  come  under  the 
form  of  quotation  included  in  the  words  Iva  TrXrjpwSrj — 
"  that  it  might  be  fulfilled" —  would  be  whether  this 
manner  of  quotation  would  be  consistent  with  just 
views  of  inspiration.  A  solution  of  the  difficulties  on 
that  point,  or  a  failure  to  solve  the  difficulties,  would  in 
no  way  affect  the  more  general  inquiry  whether  there 
may  not  be  prophecies  which  are  encumbered  with  no 
difficulties  of  this  nature.  They  must  stand  or  fall  on 
their  own  merit.  The  question  of  inspiration  may  be  af 
fected  by  this  inquiry,  but  not  the  question  of  prophecy. 

Laying  these  things,  therefore,  out  of  view,  as  in  no 
way  affecting  the  inquiry  before  us,  I  shall  now  proceed 
to  make  a  few  remarks  on  the  evidence  from  prophecy 
of  the  truth  of  revelation  as  it  appears  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  Of  course  the  remarks  must  be  few.  I  can 
not  go  in  detail  into  an  examination  of  the  numerous 
predictions  in  the  Bible  in  regard'  to  the  future. 

The  Bible,  more  than  any  other  book,  deals  with  the 
future. 

(a)  Philosophers  and  historians  rarely  venture  into 
the  region  of  the  future,  for  it  is  not  in  their  province. 
Their  field  is  mainly  the  past;  their  range  in  regard 
to  the  future  is  limited  to  reflections  and  inferences 
from  the  past  as  to  what  the  future,  supposing  that 
the  world  is  governed  by  uniform  laws,  and  that  the 


216  LECTURES    ON   THE 

same  causes  will  produce  the  same  results,  may  be. 
That  luxury  will  corrupt  and  destroy  a  nation  is  one 
of  those  general  maxims  derived  from  the  experience 
of  the  past,  and  it  may  therefore  be  predicted  that 
where  luxury  abounds  it  will  produce  the  same  effect 
hereafter  which  it  has  done  before.  But  beyond  such 
general  maxims  philosophers  and  historians  do  not  ven 
ture  to  go.  Mr.  Gibbon  deals  with  the  past ;  Tacitus 
dealt  with  the  past ;  Mr.  Hume  and  Lord  Macaulay  deal 
with  the  past ;  and,  profound  as  are  the  reflections  of 
these  men,  especially  those  of  Tacitus,  on  human  affairs, 
on  human  nature  as  exhibited  by  the  course  of  events, 
and  on  what  may  be  the  destiny  of  nations  or  the  ad 
vances  of  society  hereafter,  yet  they  never  venture  to 
suggest  what  may  be  the  boundaries  of  empires  in  times 
to  come ;  what  new  forms  of  dominion  may  arise ;  what 
remarkable  personages  may  appear  and  act  their  part 
on  the  great  theatre  of  human  affairs  ;  what  cities  may 
be  besieged  or  lands  laid  waste  by  war ;  what  new 
towns  may  be  built,  or  at  what  periods  of  time  great 
and  important  events  may  be  expected  to  occur.  Men 
can  calculate  eclipses,  but  they  do  not  venture  to  fore 
tell  how  events  will  occur  that  are  dependent  on  the 
human  will,  or  consequent  on  new  discoveries  and  in 
ventions  in  the  sciences  and  the  arts.  The  Bible,  how 
ever,  deals  as  much  and  as  freely  with  the  future  as 
with  the  past,  and  the  sacred  writers  do  not  hesitate  any 
more  to  describe  what  will  occur  than  to  record  what 
has  happened.  The  nearest  approach  to  such  predic 
tions  as  occur  in  the  Scriptures,  in  the  ancient  classic 
writings,  is  probably  found  in  the  "  Pollio"  of  Virgil 
(Eel.  iv.),  bearing,  in  some  respects,  a  strong  resem 
blance  to  some  passages  in  Isaiah ;  but  it  would  be 
easy  to  show  how  far  short  this  comes  of  prophecy. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  217 

(b)  False  religions  do  not  deal  much  with  the  future. 
As  Mohammed  in  his  public  life  expressly  disclaimed  re 
liance  on  miracles  as  not  necessary  to  the  establishment 
of  his  religion,  so,  in  the  Koran,  he  has  practically  dis 
claimed  reliance  on  prophecy  as  equally  unnecessary. 
There  are  no  predictions  in  the  Koran  corresponding 
with  those  of  the  Messiah  in  the  Scriptures,  or  with 
those  pertaining  to  Babylon,  to  Petra,  to  Tyre,  to 
Edom,  or  to  Jerusalem.  Mohammed,  perhaps,  had  sa 
gacity  enough  to  see  that  the  truth  of  any  such  predic 
tions  would  soon  come  to  a  practical  test,  for  there  is 
nothing  on  which  men  who  wish  to  establish  a  perma 
nent  religion,  or  a  permanent  fame,  will  be  so  slow  to 
venture  as  on  predictions  in  regard  to  the  future.  The 
Bible,  therefore,  has  laid  itself  open  to  detection  as  no 
other  book  has,  if  it  is  false,  by  its  pretended  disclosures 
of  the  future.  Lord  Bacon,  in  his  will,  said,  "  For  my 
name  and  memory,  I  leave  them  to  men's  charitable 
speeches,  and  to  foreign  nations,  and  to  the  next  ages? 
The  Bible,  in  all  the  reproaches  cast  upon  it,  has  thus 
left  its  vindication  to  the  "  next  ages" — to  remotest  pe 
riods  and  generations. 

The  nature  of  the  argument  I  shall  state  now  in  few 
words.  There  is  not  time  to  go  into  detail,  nor  is  it 
necessary  for  my  purpose. 

First.  The  sacred  books  describe  things  as  they  now 
exist — now,  in  this  nineteenth  century.  The  range  of 
subjects  to  which  this  remark  is  applicable  is  very 
large,  but  the  nature  of  the  argument  would  be  the 
same  whether  we  take  the  whole  range  of  subjects  into 
the  account,  or  confine  our  illustrations  to  a  few  of  them. 
As  the  facts  are  not  such  that  they  could  or  would  be 
called  in  question,  it  can  not  be  alleged  that  any  advan 
tage  would  be  taken,  or  any  unfairness  evinced,  if  we 

K 


218  LECTURES    ON    THE 

confine  our  attention  to  a  very  few  of  these  things. 
We  may  take,  then,  as  a  specimen — as  a  sufficient  illus 
tration — the  condition  of  two  celebrated  cities  in  the 
past,  Babylon  and  Tyre.  The  remark  which  I  am  now 
making  is,  that  now,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  con 
dition  of  those  cities  is  what  the  prophets  said  it  would 
be  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago. 

Babylon. — The  prophets  said  that  the  following  would 
be  its  condition :  "  And  Babylon,  the  glory  of  kingdoms, 
the  beauty  of  the  Chaldees'  excellency,  shall  be  as  when 
God  overthrew  Sodom  and  Gomorrah.  It  shall  never 
be  inhabited,  neither  shall  it  be  dwelt  in  from  genera 
tion  to  generation ;  neither  shall  the  Arabian  pitch  his 
tent  there ;  neither  shall  the  shepherds  make  their  fold 
there ;  but  wild  beasts  of  the  desert  shall  lie  there,  and 
their  houses  shall  be  full  of  doleful  creatures,  and  owls 
shall  dwell  there,  and  satyrs  shall  dance  there.  And 
wild  beasts  of  the  islands  shall  cry  in  their  desolate 
houses,  and  dragons  in  their  pleasant  palaces ;  and  her 
time  is  near  to  come,  and  her  days  shall  not  be  pro 
longed"  (Isa.,  xiii.,  19-22).  "I  will  also  make  it  a  pos 
session  for  the  bittern,  and  pools  of  water ;  and  I  will 
sweep  it  with  the  besom  of  destruction,  saith  the  Lord 
of  hosts"  (Isa.,  xiv.,  23). 

This  is  the  condition  of  Babylon  now,  and  has  been 
for  centuries.  Every  part  of  this  statement  can  be  con 
firmed,  and  has  been  confirmed  by  travelers  in  the  East, 
and  in  regard  to  the  facts  there  are  no  varying  state 
ments.  My  time  will  not  allow  me  to  go  into  detail  in 
showing  the  accuracy  of  this  description ;  and  it  is  un 
necessary,  for  there  are  no  differences  of  statements  in 
regard  to  what  Babylon  is,  and  has  been  for  centuries.* 

*  For  details  on  this  subject,  if  any  are  disposed  to  pursue  it  farther, 
I  may  be  permitted  to  refer  to  my  Notes  on  Isaiah  on  these  passages, 
and  to  Keith  on  the  Prophecies,  p.  185-190,  218-235. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  219 

Tyre. — Of  Tyre,  the  prophets  said  that  the  following 
would  be  its  condition :  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  Be 
hold,  I  am  against  thee,  O  Tyrus,  and  will  cause  many 
nations  to  come  against  thee,  as  the  sea  causeth  his 
waves  to  come  up ;  and  they  shall  destroy  the  walls  of 
Tyrus,  and  break  down  her  towers ;  and  I  will  scrape 
her  dust  from  her,  and  make  her  like  the  top  of  a  rock : 
it  shall  be  a  place  for  the  spreading  of  nets  in  the  midst 
of  the  sea ;  for  I  have  spoken  it,  saith  the  Lord  God" 
(Ezek.,  xxvi.,  3-5).  "  I  will  make  thee  like  the  top  of  a 
rock ;  thou  shalt  be  a  place  to  spread  nets  upon  ;  thou 
shalt  be  built  no  more,  for  I  the  Lord  have  spoken  it, 
saith  the  Lord  God"  (Ezek.,  xxvi.,  14).  "I  will  make 
thee  a  terror,  and  thou  shalt  be  no  more :  though  thou 
be  sought  for,  yet  thou  shalt  never  be  found  again,  saith 
the  Lord  God"  (Ezek.,  xxvi.,  21).  This  is,  and  has  been 
the  condition  of  Tyre  for  many  centuries  now,  as  might 
be  shown  by  any  number  of  witnesses.  "  The  vicissi 
tudes  of  time,  or  rather  the  barbarism  of  the  Greeks  of 
the  lower  empire,"  says  Volney,  "have  accomplished 
their  prediction.  Instead  of  that  ancient  commerce," 
says  he,  "  so  active  and  so  extensive,  Tyre,  reduced  to 
a  miserable  village,  has  no  other  trade  than  the  expor 
tation  of  a  few  sacks  of  corn  and  raw  cotton ;  nor  any 
merchant  but  a  single  Greek  factor,  who  scarcely 
makes  sufficient  profit  to  maintain  his  family."  "The 
whole  village  of  Tyre,"  he  adds,  "contains  only  fifty  or 
sixty  poor  families,  who  live  obscurely  on  the  produce 
of  their  little  grounds  and  a  small  fishery." — Travels, 
p.  212.  Bruce  describes  Tyre  as  a  "rock  whereon 
fishers  dry  their  nets."  Of  Tyre  in  its  present  con 
dition,  there  is  no  more  difference  in  the  description  of 
travelers  than  there  is  in  the  description  of  Babylon. 
The  accordance  of  the  facts  with  the  prophetic  state- 


220  LECTURES    ON   THE 

ments  could  be  easily  established  in  the  most  minute 
details. 

The  remarks  now  made  might  be  extended,  with  like 
accuracy  of  description,  to  Nineveh,  Edom,  Petra,  Je 
rusalem,  to  the  condition  of  the  Hebrew  people,  I  be 
lieve  also  to  the  fall  of  the  Roman  empire,  the  estab 
lishment  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Messiah,  and  the  rise 
and  character  of  the  Papal  power.  But  the  discussion 
would  be  too  extended,  and  would  not  add  essential 
strength  to  the  argument.  Let  us,  therefore,  in  the 
consideration  of  the  argument,  confine  ourselves  to  the 
two  great  cities  now  mentioned,  and  to  the  cities  with 
which  they  were  connected,  and  which  rose  from  the 
same  causes,  and  which  by  the  same  causes  were  made 
permanently  desolate,  as  the  prophets  said  they  would 
be. 

Second.  What  was  predicted,  and  what  has  occurred, 
in  regard  to  the  cities  to  which  I  have  referred  as  an 
illustration  of  the  argument,  was,  in  itself,  in  a  high  de 
gree  improvable.  There  was  no  reason  why  Babylon 
should  become  a  scene  of  utter  and  permanent  desola 
tion  ;  there  was  none  why  Tyre  should  cease  to  be  an 
important  sea-port,  and  should  become  a  place  on  which 
the  poor  fisherman  should  spread  his  nets;  and  there 
was  no  probability  that  either  would  occur.  A  similar 
prophecy  now,  in  regard  to  London  or  New  York, 
would  have  as  much  probability  as  the  prophecies  re 
specting  Babylon  and  Tyre  had  when  they  were  utter 
ed  ;  and  strange  and  improbable  as  Macaulay's  descrip 
tion  of  the  inhabitant  of  New  Zealand  standing  on  a 
broken  arch  of  London  Bridge,  amid  a  scene  of  wide 
desolation,  and  making  a  sketch  of  the  ruins  of  St. 
Paul's,  seems  to  us,  yet  it  is  no  more  strange  than  the 
predictions  of  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel  would  have  appeared 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  221 

to  the  men  of  their  times  in  regard  to  Babylon  and  Tyre. 
Babylon,  in  its  position,  its  strength,  its  resources,  its 
trade,  its  wealth,  its  relation  to  the  vast  empire  of 
which  it  was  the  capital,  and  the  other  empires  of  the 
East  with  which  it  was  connected,  had  all  the  requisites 
of  a  great  and  permanent  city ;  Tyre,  in  its  harbor,  its 
relation  to  the  commerce  of  Asia,  its  situation  on  the 
Mediterranean,  with  no  rival  harbor  on  the  whole  of 
the  eastern  shores  of  that  great  sea,  and  its  position  be 
tween  Asia  and  Europe,  through  which  the  commerce 
of  the  East  must  pass,  had  all  the  requisites  of  a  per 
manent  and  rich  sea-port ;  nor  could  it  be  shown  that 
Liverpool  or  New  York,  in  relation  to  the  commerce  of 
the  world  now,  are  more  favorably  situated  than  Tyre 
was  then.  The  great  traffic  of  the  East — of  the  world 
— passed  through  it,  and  it  must  have  seemed  then  that 
that  traffic  would  continue  to  pass  through  it  forever. 

Third.  The  causes  of  the  permanent  ruin  of  these 
cities,  and  of  the  other  cities  in  the  same  group — Petra, 
Tadmor,  Baalbec — were  such  as  could  not  then  be  fore 
seen.  The  foretelling  of  those  causes  was  wholly  be 
yond  the  existing  state  of  knowledge  at  that  age  of 
the  world — wholly  beyond  the  range  of  human  sagac 
ity.* 

The  main  cause  of  these  great  changes,  and  perhaps 
the  sole  cause  of  these  permanent  desolations,  was  the 
discovery  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  the  conse 
quent  change  which  that  event  made  in  the  commerce 
of  the  world.  Babylon,  and  Tyre,  and  Petra,  and  Pal- 

*  In  relation  to  these  causes,  which  there  was  not  time  fully  to 
state  in  the  Lecture,  I  may  be  permitted  to  refer  to  an  article  on  the 
"Ancient  Commerce  of  Western  Asia, "  in  the  Biblical  Repository  for 
1840,  and  reprinted  in  the  volumes  entitled  "Miscellaneous  Essays 
and  Reviews,"  published  by  Ivison  andPhinney,  1855,  vol.  ii.,  p.  5-60. 


222  LECTURES    ON   THE 

myra  were  indeed  in  ruins  before  that  event  occurred, 
but  there  was  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  case  that 
prevented  their  being  rebuilt  again,  until  the  causes 
which  had  made  them  great  had  ceased  forever.  The 
great  and  rich  commerce  of  the  East  had  been  the  prize 
sought  for  by  all  ancient  nations,  and  that  commerce 
had  laid  the  foundation,  or  had  given  importance  to  the 
cities  and  sea-ports  which  were  in  the  line  of  its  direc 
tion,  as  that  commerce  subsequently  made  Alexandria 
and  Venice,  in  a  great  measure,  what  they  were.  The 
discovery  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope — a  new  passage  to 
India  —  gave  that  commerce  a  new  direction  forever, 
and  sealed  the  truth  of  the  prophecies — forever  turned 
it  from  Petra,  and  Palmyra,  and  Tyre,  and  Babylon,  and 
Alexandria,  and  Venice,  as  the  ocean  ships  from  Asia 
to  California,  and  the  Pacific  Railroad,  may  yet  turn  it 
away  from  London  and  Liverpool.  There  were  no 
causes  when  the  prophets  spoke  that  tended  to  make 
Babylon,  and  Petra,  and  Tyre  what  they  are,  any  more 
than  there  were  causes  which  could  be  foreseen  to  pro 
duce  the  malaria  in  the  Pontine  Marshes,  desolating 
Rome,  or  than  there  will  be  causes  in  the  future  which 
could  now  be  foreseen  which  will  make  Philadelphia  or 
London  pools  of  water  and  the  habitation  of  owls. 
Mere  political  sagacity  could  never,  in  Palestine  or  any 
where  else,  have  foreseen  the  discovery  of  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  or  the  effects  of  the  use  of  the  magnetic 
needle,  or  the  changes  produced  by  the  railroad  and 
the  steam  vessel ;  nor  could  political  sagacity  have  pre 
dicted  the  flowing  in  of  the  sand  that  permanently 
blocked  up  the  harbor  of  Tyre. 

Fourth.  The  prophetic  statements  to  which  I  have 
referred  were  written  before  the  events  occurred.  In 
respect  to  some  prophecies,  as,  for  example,  the  predic- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  223 

tion  of  the  beginning  and  the  close  of  the  Babylonish 
captivity,  in  which  both  the  prophecy  and  the  event  are 
now  far  distant  in  the  past,  it  may  require  no  small 
amount  of  learning  and  argument  to  demonstrate  that 
the  prophecy  was  written  before  the  event ;  in  respect 
to  the  events  now  under  consideration,  no  such  study 
can  be  necessary,  for  it  can  not  be  made  a  matter  of 
doubt.  I  believe,  indeed,  that  it  can  be  fully  shown  by 
the  sternest  literary  criticism  that  the  prophecies  re 
specting  Babylon  and  Tyre  were  written  before  the  de 
cline  and  fall  of  those  great  cities,  and  when  they  were, 
in  fact,  in  the  meridian  height  of  their  splendor ;  but, 
however  that  may  be,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they 
were  written  before  the  present  time,  and,  therefore,  an 
terior  to  their  fulfillment  as  the  fulfillment  is  now — the 
fulfillment  of  absolute  and  perpetual  desolation.  If  it 
could  have  been  foretold  by  natural  sagacity,  or  by  rea 
soning  on  the  ordinary  course  of  events,  as  probable  or 
even  certain,  that  they  would  be  overthrown  by  war, 
or  by  time,  or  by  changes  in  human  aifairs,  yet  how,  by 
such  sagacity,  could  it  have  been  predicted  that  they 
would  be  perpetually  and  permanently  desolate  f  How 
could  the  prominent  cause  of  that  perpetual  desolation 
— the  changing  of  the  commerce  of  the  world  by  a  new 
route  to  the  Indies,  of  which  they  at  that  time  never 
dreamed — have  been  foreseen  ?  And  how,  in  any  cir 
cumstances,  could  their  perpetual  desolation  have  been 
predicted  ?  Do  cities  never  rise  again  after  they  have 
been  destroyed  ?  Are  they  never  rebuilt  after  they  have 
been  razed  to  their  foundations  by  war  ?  Jerusalem — 
how  often  was  it  rebuilt  after  it  had  been  laid  in  ruins  ! 
Rome — how  often  has  that  been  laid  waste  by  fire ;  by 
invading  armies ;  by  the  Goths  and  Vandals ;  by  ma 
laria  ;  and  yet  how  often  it  has  been  rebuilt  again !  Lon- 


224  LECTUEES    ON   THE 

don — how  often  has  the  fire  passed  over  it,  and  yet  it 
has  risen  to  augmented  wealth  and  grandeur !  Lisbon, 
destroyed  by  an  earthquake  —  how  soon  did  it  rise 
again !  Why,  then,  are  Babylon,  and  Tyre,  and  Petra, 
and  Tadmor,  doomed  to  perpetual  desolation?  And 
how  could  it  be  known  that  they  would  be  ?  But  there 
they  are,  now,  in  this  nineteenth  century,  precisely  as 
the  prophets  said  they  would  be — piles  of  ruins ;  utter 
desolations ;  the  habitation  of  dragons,  and  satyrs,  and 
owls. 

Fifth.  It  remains,  then,  in  summing  up  what  I  have 
said,  to  observe  that  these  things  are  beyond  the  range 
of  the  unaided  powers  of  man.  They  are  not  a  mere 
guess,  or  a  vague  conjecture  of  what  might  be,  like  Ma- 
caulay's  remark  about  the  New  Zealander;  they  are 
positive  affirmations  of  what  would  be.  They  can  not 
come  under  the  province  of  hope,  for  their  enemies  could 
have  seen  no  ground  of  hope  that  they  would  be  thus 
permanently  desolate.  They  are  not  the  result  of  math 
ematical  calculation,  as  the  movements  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  are,  for  ruined  cities  come  under  no  such  laws. 
The  predictions  are  not  the  result  of  political  sagacity. 
In  particularity ;  in  definiteness ;  in  minuteness ;  in  de 
tail,  they  are  wholly  unlike  the  predictions  of  Burke 
and  Canning,  for  even  Burke,  wonderful  as  his  sagacity 
was,  never  ventured  on  any  predictions  that  would  cor 
respond  in  detail  with  the  events  following  the  French 
Revolution  and  the  Regicide  Peace.  They  are,  there 
fore,  the  result  of  PROPHECY — the  effect  of  a  supernatu 
ral  endowment  of  man,  on  a  line  similar  to  miracles ;  and 
a  confirmation  now,  like  miracles,  of  the  divine  origin 
of  the  book  in  which  they  are  found. 

The  following,  then,  is  the  argument  in  this  nine 
teenth  century : 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  225 

(a)  There  are  the  books  containing  these  prophecies. 
They  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  far-distant  past 
—  the  most  venerable  books  in  the  possession  of  man 
kind.  Those  books  do  not  pass  away  as  their  authors 
did.  They  live.  They  have  lived  for  more  than  two 
thousand  years.  They  will  live  on  to  all  coming  time. 
They  do  not  change.  Not  a  word  is  altered ;  not  a  let 
ter  is  lost.  They  may  be  examined  with  the  utmost 
patience  and  leisure  of  criticism,  and  the  world  is  in 
vited  to  the  examination. 

(t>)  There  are  the  facts.  The  East  is  full  of  them. 
They,  too,  do  not  now  change.  Babylon  and  Tyre  are 
what  they  have  been  for  more  than  a  thousand  years, 
and  they  will  remain  what  they  are  for  more  than  a 
thousand  years  to  come,  except  that  the  corroding 
tooth  of  time  will  slowly  remove  the  proofs,  as  now 
found  in  their  remains,  that  they  once  existed  at  all. 
They,  too,  may  be  examined  as  leisurely  as  the  books. 
Travelers  tell  us  what  they  are,  and  they  do  not  vary 
in  their  statements.  Any  man,  if  he  has  any  doubt  on 
the  subject,  may  go  and  examine  those  ruins.  "  I 
would,"  said  a  countryman  of  our  own,  when  speaking 
of  the  ruins  of  a  city  in  the  East,  "  I  would  that  the 
skeptic  could  stand,  as  I  did,  among  the  ruins  of  this 
city,  and  there  open  the  sacred  book,  and  read  the 
words  of  the  inspired  penman,  written  when  this  deso 
late  place  was  one  of  the  greatest  cities  in  the  world. 
I  see  the  scoif  arrested,  his  cheek  pale,  his  lip  quivering, 
and  his  heart  quaking  with  fear,  as  the  ancient  city  cries 
out  to  him,  in  a  voice  loud  and  powerful  as  one  risen 
from  the  dead ;  though  he  would  not  believe  Moses  and 
the  prophets,  he  believes  the  handwriting  of  God  him 
self  in  the  desolation  and* eternal  ruin  around  him."* 
*  Stephens,  Incidents  of  Travel,  etc.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  76. 
K2 


226  LECTURES    ON   THE 


LECTURE 

INSPIRATION  OP  THE  SCRIPTURES  WITH  REFERENCE  TO 
THE  OBJECTIONS  MADE  IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CEN 
TURY. 

THE  subject  of  this  Lecture  will  be  the  inspiration  of 
the  Bible  as  an  argument  for  the  divine  origin  of  Chris 
tianity,  keeping  before  us,  in  the  discussion,  the  main 
thought  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  these  Lectures 
— the  argument  as  it  exists  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  point  of  the  inquiry  is  not  what  the  argument  for 
the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  and  the  consequent  proofs 
of  the  divine  origin  of  the  system,  would  have  been 
when  the  canon  of  the  Bible  was  complete,  and  it  was 
first  submitted  to  the  world,  but  what  it  is  now,  after 
the  volume  has  been  before  the  world  for  eighteen 
hundred  years.  It  has  been  fairly  tried.  It  may  be  pre 
sumed  that  all  the  objections  that  are  ever  to  be  made 
to  its  inspiration  have  been  already  made.  It  may  be 
assumed  that  its  teachings  are  understood,  and  that  we 
now  understand  what  its  influence  will  be  at  any  time, 
in  any  land,  or  in  relation  to  any  class  of  men,  barbar 
ous  or  civilized,  or  in  its  bearing  on  the  morals,  the 
manners,  and  the  laws  of  men.  It  may  be  assumed, 
perhaps,  that  science  will  have  nothing  more  formida 
ble  to  oppose  to  its  claims  to  inspiration  than  it  has 
already  alleged,  and  that  no  discoveries  will  be  made 
in  the  ruins  of  ancient  cities  and  towns,  or  in  the  struc 
ture  of  the  earth  itself,  that  will  add  any  new  facts  to 
strengthen  the  argument  against  its  divine  origin. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  227 

What,  then,  is  the  evidence,  in  the  age  in  which  we 
live,  that  this  book  was  inspired  ? 

It  would  not  be  practicable  in  a  single  Lecture,  on 
such  a  subject,  to  enter  into  details,  and  it  is  not  my 
purpose  to  attempt  it.  This  one  subject  itself  might 
extend  beyond  the  entire  limit  of  this  course  of  Lec 
tures,  and  still  be  unexhausted  ;  for  the  field  is  ample  ; 
the  difficulties  are  great ;  there  are  important  ques 
tions  which  are  not  yet  settled ;  and  perhaps,  as  com 
pared  with  other  subjects  pertaining  to  the  Bible,  there 
is  no  more  inviting  field  on  which  a  student  of  the  sa 
cred  Scriptures,  who  would  wish  to  prepare  something 
that  might  be  the  great  work  of  his  life,  could  more 
properly  employ  his  talents  than  in  endeavoring  to 
determine  the  yet  unsettled  questions  about  the  in 
spiration  of  the  Bible.  Into  the  questions,  therefore, 
about  the  modes  of  inspiration;  whether  it  extends 
to  the  words  as  well  as  to  the  matter ;  how  far  the 
sacred  writers  availed  themselves  of  their  own  knowl 
edge  and  observation,  and  the  knowledge  and  histor 
ical  records  in  existence  when  they  wrote ;  how  far, 
as  inspired  men,  they  are  responsible  for  statements 
on  other  subjects  than  those  pertaining  to  the  im 
mediate  purpose  of  inspiration  —  the  ordinary  facts 
of  history,  or  the  statements  of  science  ;  how  far  they 
were  permitted  to  employ  their  own  powers,  and  how 
this  is  consistent  wth  their  being  inspired ;  how  the 
apparent  discrepancies  and  contradictions  in  the  book 
can  be  reconciled  with  the  idea  of  inspiration  —  into 
these  and  kindred  questions  I  do  not  propose  largely 
to  enter.  I  may  be  permitted,  also,  to  say,  that  on 
some  of  these  points  there  are  difficulties  which  have 
not  yet  been  met,  and  which  perhaps  none  of  us  are 
prepared  to  meet. 


228 


LECTURES    ON    THE 


I  shall,  therefore,  limit  my  remarks  to  considerations 
of  a  very  general  nature,  designed  to  show  that  the 
Bible  can  not  have  been  the  work  of  the  unaided  hu 
man  powers,  but  that  there  are  things  pertaining  to  it 
which  show  that  it  must  have  come  from  God,  or  that 
it  was  inspired.  In  a  parallel  case,  we  might  show  that 
the  worlds  bear  marks  of  having  been  made  by  God, 
and  that  any  other  theory  would  be  incapable  of  de 
fense,  though  there  may  be  a  thousand  difficulties  in 
our  minds  in  respect  to  that  creation,  and  a  thousand 
things  which  we  are  not  competent  to  reconcile  and 
explain. 

There  are  certain  characteristics  of  mind  which,  how 
ever  unnatural  it  may  seem  at  first  sight  to  place  them 
together,  appear  to  lie  in  the  same  line,  or  to  have  a  re 
lation  to  each  other  which  has  not  yet  been  explained ; 
where  one  closely  borders  on  another ;  where  one  may 
be  mistaken  for  another ;  and  where,  in  describing  the 
operations  of  the  mind,  there  may  be  danger  of  ascrib 
ing  that  to  one  which  properly  belongs  to  another.  I 
mention  them  in  the  following  order :  Genius ;  Inspira 
tion;  Insanity. 

I  mention  them  in  this  connection  and  this  order,  not 
because  this  order  is  always  found,  or  because  the  one 
naturally  develops  itself  into  the  other,  or  because  the 
one  is  to  be  explained  on  the  same  principles  as  the 
other,  but  because  there  is  a  certain  resemblance  in 
them  which  would  not  be  likely  to  be  found  in  other 
characteristics  of  the  human  mind  as  bearing  on  the 
production  of  a  work  of  art,  or  in  relation  to  the  devel 
opments  of  the  highest  forms  of  thought.  The  Bible 
is  the  creation  of  one  of  these.  The  word  inspiration 
is  often  applied  to  the  works  of  genius /  among  the 
Greeks,  and  the  ancients  generally,  the  idea  of  inspira- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  229 

tion,  as  at  the  oracle  at  Delphi,  was  closely  connected 
with  the  ravings  of  insanity. 

(1.)  Genius. — This  means  "the  peculiar  structure  of 
mind  which  is  given  by  nature  to  an  individual,  or  that 
disposition  or  bent  of  mind  which  is  peculiar  to  every 
man,  and  which  qualifies  him  for  a  particular  employ 
ment  ;  a  particular  natural  talent  or  aptitude  for  a  par 
ticular  study  or  course  of  life — as  a  genius  for  history, 
poetry,  or  painting." — Webster.  Hence  it  comes  to  be 
applied  to  superiority  of  mind,  or  to  uncommon  powers 
of  intellect,  particularly  the  power  of  invention. 

This  often  seems  to  rise  into  inspiration,  and,  at  any 
rate,  lies  along  on  the  borders  of  inspiration,  using  that 
word  now  in  the  largest  sense.  Our  life,  if  we  would 
mark  it  in  any  case,  is  made  up  much  of  suggestions  ab 
extra — from  without.  Those  suggestions  are  number 
less,  and  as  varied  as  they  are  numberless ;  they  are 
flitting  and  transitory;  they  come  from  some  unseen 
quarter,  and  are  apparently  connected  with  each  other 
by  no  laws  of  association,  and  by  no  laws  that  we  can 
trace  with  what  we  have  done  or  thought  before.  A 
few  of  them  we  retain  at  our  pleasure ;  the  mass  we 
dismiss  at  once,  as  we  do  dreams.  Genius  consists,  per 
haps,  not  so  much  in  the  numbers  or  the  nature  of  those 
suggestions  as  in  the  power  or  the  disposition  to  retain 
them  and  to  make  a  selection  from  them ;  to  keep  and 
combine  those  that  may  be  the  origin  of  great  inven 
tions,  or  that  may  be  developed  into  some  new  discov 
ery  in  science — that  may  lay  the  foundation  of  a  great 
tragedy  or  a  great  epic.  A  thousand  persons  might 
have  seen  the  spasmodic  action  produced  in  the  mus 
cles  of  the  leg  of  a  frog  when  in  contact  with  a  com 
position  of  zinc  and  acid,  and  never  have  thought  of 
it  again ;  but  to  Galvani  it  suggested  an  idea  worth 


230  LECTURES    ON   THE 

pursuing.  Thousands  of  persons  had  seen  an  apple  fall 
from  a  tree,  and  had  thought  no  more  of  it ;  to  Newton, 
according  to  the  current  tradition,  it  suggested  an  in 
quiry  into  the  cause  of  its  falling,  and  led  to  the  discov 
ery  of  the  great  laws  by  which  the  planets  are  held  in 
their  places  and  by  which  the  worlds  revolve.  Thou 
sands  of  persons  had  seen  the  operation  of  steam  on  a 
small  scale — in  lifting  the  lid  of  a  tea-kettle — and  had 
dismissed  it  without  thought ;  to  such  a  mind  as  that 
of  Watt  it  suggested  the  idea  of  power,  of  motion,  and 
is  now  changing  the  industry,  the  commerce,  the  civil 
ization,  and  the  religion  of  the  world. 

Yet  who  can  tell  whence  these  suggestions  come  into 
our  minds  ?  Who  is  their  author  ?  By  what  laws  do 
they  come,  and  by  what  laws  do  they  go  ?  And  by 
what  principles  did  Homer,  and  Shakspeare,  and  New 
ton  retain  them,  and  mould  them  till  their  development 
had  given  undying  lustre  to  their  memory  ? 

There  are  those  who  suppose  that  the  inspiration  of 
the  Bible  is  no  more  than  this,  and  that  it  is  to  be  ex 
plained  on  the  same  principle ;  not  as  derived  from  sug 
gestions  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  but  as  suggestions  of  the 
mind  itself,  the  suggestions  of  genius.  Such  persons — 
and  they  are  many  now — like  Theodore  Parker,  and 
like  Renan,  do  not  deny  the  "  inspiration"  of  the  Bible, 
but  it  is  inspiration  such  as  there  was  in  Burns  or  in 
Bacon ;  in  Homer  or  in  Milton ;  in  Dante  or  in  Michael 
Angelo.  Shakspeare  and  Isaiah,  Kant  and  Paul,  differ 
only  in  degree. 

How  closely  the  idea  of  genius  and  inspiration  lie  on 
the  same  line  may  be  seen  from  the  meaning  which  the 
word  genius  has  acquired.  The  ancients,  in  their  use 
of  the  word,  did  not  attribute  genius  to  a  man's  own 
mind.  It  was  the  good  or  evil  spirit,  or  demon,  which 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  231 

was  supposed  to  preside  over  his  destiny  in  life  ;  to  di 
rect  his  birth  and  actions  ;  to  be  his  guard  and  guide ; 
to  suggest  thoughts  to  him ;  to  impart  to  him  wisdom. 
Socrates  always  referred  what  he  had  of  wisdom  that 
might  be  superior  to  that  of  other  men,  not  to  himself, 
but  to  his  "  genius" — the  demon  that  pertained  to  him, 
that  attended  on  him,  that  inspired  him.  The  genius 
loci  of  the  ancients  was  the  presiding  spirit  of  a  place, 
the  tutelary  divinity,  hence  denoting  the  pervading 
spirit  of  an  institution,  a  city,  a  society  of  men.  The 
question  before  us  is  whether  this  will  explain  all  that 
there  was  in  Isaiah  and  John. 

(2.)  Inspiration  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  Ad 
mitting  now  that  there  is  such  a  thing,  the  present  ob 
ject  is  to  distinguish  it  from  genius — how  it  resembles 
it,  and  how  it  differs  from  it. 

(a)  As  we  have  seen,  it  resembles  it.  It  is  suggestive. 
It  is  ab  extra.  It  is  from  some  unseen  quarter.  It 
comes  into  the  mind  by  no  laws  of  association  witft  the 
past,  often  apparently  by  no  laws  of  association  with 
the  differentials  of  the  suggestion,  any  more  than  the 
suggestions  of  genius  have,  or  than  dreams  have.  It 
contains  great  thoughts — what  Lord  Bacon  calls  "  the 
seeds  of  things" — to  be  developed  either  by  the  study 
of  the  prophet  himself,  who  is  inspired,  studying  his 
own  predictions  as  if  they  were  those  of  another  man, 
or,  in  after  times,  by  events  that  shall  occur,  by  higher 
revelations,  or  by  the  studies  of  uninspired  men.  Thus, 
of  the  prophets,  one  himself  inspired  has  said,  "  Of 
which  salvation  the  prophets  have  inquired  and  search 
ed  diligently,  searching  what,  or  what  manner  of  time 
the  spirit  of  Christ  which  was  in  them  did  signify,  when 
it  testified  beforehand  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  the 
glory  that  should  follow"  (1  Peter,  i.,  11,  12).  They 


232  LECTURES    ON   THE 

gave  themselves  to  the  careful  and  profound  study  of 
their  own  prophecies,  of  the  meaning  of  the  words 
which  had  been  suggested  to  them  by  the  Spirit  of 
God. 

(b)  Yet  inspiration  differs  from  genius.  It  is  in  ad 
vance  of  genius ;  it  is  beyond  what  lies  in  the  range  of 
genius.  We  suppose  that  no  development  of  genius, 
no  mere  enlargement  of  any  man's  natural  powers,  how 
ever  richly  endowed,  nothing  which  comes  under  the 
name  of  genius,  would  come  up  to  what  is  implied  in 
inspiration.  However  we  may  account  for  the  '"  sug 
gestions"  which  come  into  our  minds,  as  I  have  said,  al 
extra,  and  especially  the  "  suggestions"  which  come  into 
the  minds  of  men  of  genius,  and  which  constitute  the 
distinction  between  them  and  other  men — suggestions 
on  which  the  progress  of  the  world  in  science  and  in 
art  so-  much  depends — or  whether  they  can  be  account 
ed  for  or  not,  yet  we  suppose  that  the  matter  of  inspira 
tion? —  the  "  suggestions"  to  the  mind  of  the  prophet  — 
can  be  definitely  explained.  They  are  not  the  sugges 
tions  of  genius,  but  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  breathing 
truths  into  the  soul  which  would  never  occur  to  a  hu 
man  mind,  however  exalted,  and  securing,  by  a  direct 
and  special  agency  on  the  soul,  the  perfect  accuracy  of 
such  suggestions.  They  are  as  if  the  Spirit  of  God 
spoke  to  men.  There  is  a  limit  to  genius.  There  is  a 
point  beyond  which  it  does  not  go.  It  never  comes  up 
to  inspiration,  as  mere  human  power,  however  great  and 
wonderful,  never  comes  up  to  a  miracle.  There  is  a 
point  where  that  power  stops  short  of  a  miracle,  and 
that  is  within  the  power  necessary  to  raise  the  dead ; 
there  is  a  point  where  genius  stops  short,  and  that  is 
within  the  limit  of  inspiration.  And  yet  it  is  a  fair 
question,  Why  may  not  the  genius  which  accomplished 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  233 

what  Shakspeare  accomplished  embrace  what  Isaiah 
did  as  well  as  what  Shakspeare  did  ? 

(3.)  It  may  have  seemed  strange,  perhaps,  that  I  have 
suggested  the  word  insanity  as  in  any  way  connected 
with  inspiration ;  as  having  any  resemblance  to  that  or 
to  genius,  or  as  lying  in  any  respect  in  the  same  line ; 
as  if  genius  and  insanity  were  in  any  way  connected  ;  as 
if  men  of  genius  were  likely  to  be  insane,  as  if  all  the  in 
sane  were  remarkable  for  genius;  or  as  if  the  prophets 
uttered  their  predictions  under  the  ravings  of  insanity. 

It  would  take  longer  than  the  time  will  now  admit 
of,  without  exhausting  the  whole  time  allotted  to  this 
Lecture,  fully  to  explain  and  justify  even  the  introduc 
tion  of  such  a  thought  to  your  minds,  or  to  show  how 
they  have  been  in  any  way  connected  or  associated  in 
the  minds  of  men. 

Perhaps  even  now  the  highest  and  best  delineations 
of  insanity  have  been  drawn,  not  by  Pritchard  and  oth 
ers  who  have  particularly  studied  and  observed  it,  but 
by  one  who  may  almost  never  have  seen  an  insane  per 
son,  and  who  had  not  himself  studied  the  subject,,  but 
by  a  man  endowed,  undoubtedly,  with  the  highest  gen 
ius  that  the  world  has  known — as  drawn  in  the  charac 
ter  of  Lear,  Hamlet,  Jaques,  and  in  the  tender  sympa 
thy,  the  knowledge  of  the  disease,  and  of  the  proper 
mode  of  treatment  of  the  disease  expressed  in  the  char 
acters  of  Ophelia  and  Cordelia.* 

The  Savior  himself  was  regarded  by  his  kindred  as 
insane :  "  And  when  his  friends  heard  of  it,  they  went 
out  to  lay  hold  on  him,  for  they  said,  He  is  beside  him- 
self"—t&aTr)  (Mark,  iii.,  21).  "Many  of  them  said,  He 
hath  a  devil,  and  is  mad" — paiverat  (John,  x.,  20). 

*  See  "  Shakspeare's  Delineations  of  Insanity,  Imbecility,  and  Sui 
cide,"  by  A.  0.  Kellogg  M.D.,  p.  1-114. 


234  LECTURES    ON   THE 

Paul  was  regarded  as  insane.  "  Festus  said,  with  a 
loud  voice,  Paul,  thou  art  beside  thyself — fiairy — much 
learning  doth  make  thee  mad ;"  more  literally,  "  much 
learning  has  turned  thee  to  insanity" — £t£  p.aviav  Trepi- 
rpeW  (Acts,  xxvi.,  24).  "  Whether,"  says  Paul, "  we  be 
beside  ourselves" — i^iar-q^v — as  we  may  seem  to  many 
to  be,  to  be  insane  — "  it  is  to  God" —  in  the  cause  of 
God ;  that  is,  what  we  say  as  inspired  men  may  seem 
to  men  to  be  the  mere  ravings  of  insanity  (2  Cor., 
v.,  13). 

It  is  well  known  to  all  that  among  the  heathen  the 
ideas  of  inspiration  and  insanity  were  closely  connected. 
The  opinion  which  was  held  by  them  on  the  subject  is 
beautifully  stated  by  Plato :  "  While  the  mind  sheds  its 
light  around  us,  pouring  into  our  souls  a  meridian  splen 
dor,  we,  being  in  possession  of  ourselves,  are  not  under 
a  supernatural  influence  ;  but  after  the  sun  goes  down, 
as  might  be  expected,  an  ecstasy,  a  divine  influence,  and 
&  frenzy  falls  upon  us ;  for  when  the  divine  light  shines, 
the  human  goes  down ;  but  when  the  former  goes  down, 
the  latter  rises  and  comes  forth.  This,"  says  he, "  is 
what  ordinarily  happens  in  prophecy.  Our  own  mind 
retires  on  the  advent  of  the  divine  spirit,  but  after  the 
latter  has  departed  the  former  again  returns"  (quoted 
in  Bib.  Repos.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  163).  Here  Plato  calls  it  "  an 
ecstasy"  " a  frenzy"  bordering  close,  at  least,  on  in 
sanity. 

In  the  common  ideas  respecting  the  Pythian  oracle, 
the  conception  of  insanity,  or  raving  madness,  becomes 
more  distinct.  Thus  Lucan  says :  "  She  madly  raves 
through  the  cavern,  impelled  by  another's  mind,  with 
the  fillets  of  the  god  and  the  garland  of  Phoabus  shaken 
from  her  erected  hair ;  she  whirls  around  the  void 
space  of  the  temple,  turning  her  face  in  every  direc- 


EVIDENCES    OP    CHRISTIANITY.  235 

tion ;  she  scatters  the  tripods  which  come  in  her  way, 
and  is  agitated  with  violent  commotion,  because  sheds 
under  thy  angry  influence,  O  Apollo."* 

Virgil  has  given  a  similar  description  of  a  demonia 
cal  possession  of  this  kind  : 

"I  feel  the  god,  the  rushing  god  !  she  cries — 
While  thus  she  spoke  enlarged  her  features  grew  ; 
Her  color  changed,  her  locks  disheveled  flew. 
The  heavenly  tumult  reigns  in  every  part, 
Pants  in  her  breast,  and  swells  her  rising  heart. 
Still  spreading  to  the  sight  the  priestess  glowed, 
And  heaved  impatient  of  the  incumbent  god  ; 
Then  to  her  inmost  soul  by  Phoebus  fired, 
In  more  than  human  sounds  she  spoke  inspired. "f 

It  has  been  supposed  by  some  that  the  true  prophets 
were  under  an  influence  of  this  kind ;  that  they  were 
divested  of  intelligent  consciousness,  so  that  they  were 
ignorant  of  what  they  uttered,  and  that  the  Spirit  of 
Inspiration  made  use  of  them  only  as  organs,  or  as  un 
conscious  agents  to  utter  his  truth.  It  is  not  my  pur 
pose  to  go  into  this  inquiry ;  but  I  suppose,  in  common 
with  the  great  mass  of  those  who  believe  in  the  Bible, 
that,  though  they  did  not  comprehend  the  full  meaning 
of  what  they  uttered  (1  Peter,!,  10-12),  yet  that  they 

*  Bacchatur  demens  aliena  per  antrum 

Colla  ferens,  vittasque  Dei,  Phrebeaque  serta 
Ercatis  discussa  comis,  per  inania  templi 
Ancipiti  cervice  rotat,  Spargitque  vaganti 
Obstantes  tripodes,  magnoque  exastuat  igne 
Iratum  te,  Phcebe,  ferens. — Pharsalia,  v. 

f  Ait :  Deus,  ecce,  Deus !  cui  talia  fanti — 

Ante  fores,  subitb  non  vultus,  non  color  unus, 
Nee  comptse  mansere  comas ;  sed  pectus  anhelum, 
Et  rabie  fera  corda  tument ;  majorque  videri 
Nee  mortale  sonans  ;  aiBata  est  numine  quando 
Jam  propriore  Dei. — JEn.,  vi.,  46  seq. 


236  LECTURES    OX   THE 

bad  an  intelligent  understanding  of  what  they  saw  or 
spoke  ;  that  the  prophet  had  control  over  his  own  mind 
(1  Cor.,  xiv.,  32) ;  that  he  could  speak  or  not,  as  he 
pleased ;  and  that  in  his  inspired  utterances  he  acted,  as 
at  other  times,  as  a  conscious,  voluntary,  and  intelligent 
agent.  The  true  idea,  probably,  has  been  expressed  by 
Lowth :  "  Inspiration  may  be  regarded,  not  as  suppress 
ing  or  extinguishing  for  a  time  the  faculties  of  the  hu 
man  mind,  but  of  purifying,  and  strengthening,  and  ele 
vating  them  above  what  they  would  otherwise  reach." 
The  reference  which  I  have  made  to  insanity  is  not  at 
all  because  it  is  believed  that  that  was  the  condition  of 
the  minds  of  the  prophets,  but  as  illustrating  the  fact 
that  it  has  been  supposed  that  these  states  of  mind  lie 
much  in  the  same  direction,  or  have  points  of  resern- 
blandt  not  unworthy  to  be  noticed.  The  bearing  of  the 
remarks  on  the  subject  before  us  is  that  the  Bible,  as 
a  composition,  is  to  be  traced  as  a  whole,  and  in  all  its 
parts,  to  erne  of  these  three  things.  The  question  be 
tween  the  friends  of  the  Bible  and  other  men  is  to 
which  of  these  it  is  to  be  attributed. 

It  will  be  admitted  by  all  that  the  Bible  is  not  a 
work  of  ordinary  talent — of  mediocre  human  powers. 
If  it  is  a  production  of  mere  genius,  it  is  genius  of  the 
highest  order.  Every  thing  about  it  shows  this:  its 
hold  on  mankind ;  its  power  to  survive  attacks ;  its  per 
petuated  existence ;  its  undiminished  influence  in  the  ad 
vances  of  civilization  and  the  arts,  and  in  the  changes 
of  human  opinion ;  its  poetry ;  its  eloquence ;  its  unity 
of  purpose;  its  power  of  creating  interest  in  the  minds 
of  all  classes  of  men — the  most  humble  as  well  as  the 
most  exalted,  and  the  most  exalted  as  well  as  the  most 
humble;  the  poor  man,  the  rich  man;  the  slave  and 
slave's  master;  the  man  of  science,  the  man  of  refined 


EVIDENCES    OP    CHRISTIANITY.  237 

taste,  and  the  newly-converted  savage ;  the  delicate 
female  and  the  hardy  warrior.  It  is  a  book  that  can 
not  be  destroyed;  a  book  that  does  not  become  old, 
and  that  is  not  hidden  away  in  the  lumber  of  old  li 
braries.  It  keeps  its  place  among  living  men  in  ages 
when  new  books  abound ;  it  has  its  place,  in  regard  to 
a  living  power,  not  with  Strabo,  and  Galen,  and  Mela, 
and  Abelard,  and  Duns  Scotus,  but  with  Milton,  and 
Shakspeare,  and  Macaulay,  and  Burke — books  that  are 
"  thumbed"  and  read ;  it  is  a  book  of  influence,  and  has 
more  influence  on  mankind  now  than  Homer,  and  Plato, 
and  the  Koran,  and  Shakspeare — than  Kant,  and  Locke, 
and  Bacon  altogether.  Is  it  a  work  of  mere  genius  ? 

I  said  that  there  are  great  questions  about  inspiration 
which  are  yet  unsettled.  I  repeat,  on  account  of  its  im 
portance,  and  with  the  hope  of  stirring  up  some  young 
man  of  this  Seminary  to  the  task,  the  remark  that  I 
have  already  made,  that,  in  my  judgment,  there  is  no 
one  department  of  Christian  literature  to  which  a 
young  man  could  better  devote  himself,  with  the  hope 
of  producing  something  which  the  "  world  would  not 
willingly  let  die,"  than  the  solution  of  those  questions. 
They  are  beyond  my  range  now — beyond  my  learning, 
my  ability,  and  I  shall  not  attempt  to  enter  on  them. 
What  is  inspiration  at  all?  What  is  plenary  inspira 
tion  ?  Is  it  suggestion,  or  superintendence,  or  control, 
or  all  combined  ?  In  inspiration,  how  far  were  the  facul 
ties  of  the  men  themselves  employed  ?  Were  they  kept 
from  error  on  all  subjects  ?  In  what  sense  was  what 
they  wrote  on  common  matters  inspired  ?  To  what 
extent  in  the  Book  is  the  Spirit  of  God  "  responsible" 
for  the  statements  made  ?  And  how  can  the  dates,  and 
the  genealogies,  and  the  apparent  inconsistencies  and 
contradictions  be  reconciled  with  the  proper  idea  of 


238  LECTURES    ON   THE 

inspiration  ?  These  are  questions  in  many  of  their  bear 
ings  yet  to  be  solved,  and  happy  will  be  the  man  who 
shall  be  raised  up  to  solve  them. 

Perhaps,  at  this  stage  of  the  argument,  it  might  be 
said  that  the  question  whether  the  Bible  is  an  inspired 
book  can  not  be  settled  till  these  questions  are  determ 
ined,  for  they  enter  into  the  very  essence  of  the  ques 
tion.  It  may  seem  to  be  so,  and  it  might  be  difficult 
to  show  that  it  is  not  so.  And  yet  it  is  not  necessarily 
so.  A  thousand  questions  may  be  asked  on  any  subject 
without  affecting  the  main  question.  There  may  be 
questions  asked  about  the  Principia  of  Newton,  and  the 
correctness  of  his  theories  about  light  and  colors,  and 
"fits  of  easy  transmission,"  and  radiations  of  heat,  which 
do  not  affect  the  question  about  the  work  as  the  work  of 
a  man  in  intellect  at  the  very  head  of  the  race ;  there 
are  many  questions  about  the  Iliad,  yet  unsettled,  which 
do  not  affect  the  question  whether  the  whole  work  is 
the  production  of  one  man;  whether  such  a  man  as 
Homer  ever  lived ;  and  whether  the  poem  is  made  up 
of  independent  "  rhapsodies"  by  different  authors.  The 
work  is  a  whole  by  itself,  and  is  a  work  of  transcendent 
genius,  however  these  questions  may  be  settled. 

May  we  not  take  some  such  view  of  the  Bible,  and 
find  in  that  the  evidence  that  it  is  inspired  without 
being  able  as  yet  to  solve  all  difficulties,  as  we  find  in 
other  books,  in  a  similar  manner,  the  evidences  of 
genius  ? 

In  regard  to  the  argument  now  to  be  submitted  to 
you,  I  would  be  willing  to  concede  that  no  single  one 
of  the  points  which  I  shall  suggest  would  of  itself  con 
stitute  a  proof  of  such  inspiration.  The  impression 
which  I  would  hope  to  make  would  be  derived  from 
all  of  them  combined.  The  point  which  I  would  desire 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  239 

to  leave  for  solution  when  I  am  through  with  the  argu 
ment  would  be,  Whether  these  things  could  exist  if  the 
J3ible  were  not  an  inspired  book  ?  I  shall  ask  you  to 
remember  that  that  which  may  not  seem  to  be  strong 
in  itself  may  be  strong  in  its  position.  The  braces 
which  help  to  sustain  a  lofty  pile  of  architecture  in  a 
cathedral,  or  the  arch  of  a  bridge,  may  be  feeble  in 
themselves,  yet  these,  combined  and  interlaced  among 
each  other,  may  give  strength  that  shall  hold  the  lofty 
structure  or  the  massive  bridge  against  the  winds  and 
the  currents  forever. 

I.  The  first  remark  which  I  make  is,  that  this  claim, 
whatever  it  is,  relates  to  a  class  of  men,  extending 
through  a  long  series  of  years,  constituting  a  unity  in 
their  productions,  and  making  their  productions  prop 
erly  one  book.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  produc 
tions  of  uninspired  genius,  this  can  not  be  said  of  them, 
and  this  claim  could  not  be  set  up  for  them.  There  is 
no  sense  in  which  the  Iliad,  and  the  Paradise  Lost,  and 
the  histories  of  Herodotus  and  Gibbon,  and  the  orations 
of  Demosthenes  and  Burke,  constitute  one  book. 

The  Bible  is  one  book  •  not  accidentally,  or  by  being 
bound  together  like  a  pile  of  old  pamphlets  which  the 
lover  of  pamphlets  accumulates  and  binds  up  in  one 
volume,  but  by  an  organic  unity  ;  a  unity  of  spirit,  de 
sign,  harmony,  purpose  ;  a  unity  in  the  sense  of  being 
separate  from  all  other  books ;  a  unity  as  distinct  as  if 
it  were  the  production  of  one  man ;  a  unity  as  complete 
as  the  Iliad  or  the  Paradise  Lost — having  a  plan ;  hav 
ing  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end — a  beginning,  a 
middle,  and  an  end  more  complete,  extending  through 
more  years,  and  embracing  a  greater  variety  of  charac 
ters  and  events  than  any  other  volume  in  the  world — 
its  beginning  the  beginning  of  creation;  its  middle  the 


240  LECTURES    ON   THE 

Incarnation  and  the  Atonement ;  its  end  the  consumma 
tion  of  the  world's  affairs. 

The  volume  is  made  up,  indeed,  of  a  large  number  of 
pamphlets,  written  by  different  men,  in  different  lan 
guages,  and  at  different  periods.  The  writers  were  of 
very  different  rank  and  character,  from  the  magnificent 
Oriental  prince  to  the  shepherd-boy  and  the  fisherman 
— from  the  man  trained  in  the  best  schools  of  the  age, 
like  Paul,  to  the  man  who  could  say  of  himself,  "  I  was 
no  prophet,  neither  was  I  a  prophet's  son ;  but  I  was 
an  herdman,  and  a  gatherer  of  sycamore  fruit ;  and  the 
Lord  took  me  as  I  followed  the  flock,  and  the  Lord  said 
unto  me,  Go,  prophesy  unto  my  people  Israel"  (Amos, 
vii.,  14, 15).  Some  of  them,  indeed,  had  all  the  learning 
of  their  own  country,  and  not  a  little  of  that  in  foreign 
lands,  and  some  had  none ;  some  had  traveled,  but  most 
of  them  had  not ;  some  had  conversed  with  sages  of 
other  countries,  but  most  of  them  had  never  seen  a 
philosopher  or  a  sage. 

What  they  wrote  constituted  substantially  all  the  lit 
erature  of  the  nation — its  poetry ;  its  learning ;  its  his 
tory  ;  its  eloquence ;  its  laws.  At  the  time  of  the  com 
pletion  of  the  volume  it  was  all  that  they  had.  If  there 
had  been  other  books  in  existence,  as  the  books  of"  Na 
than  the  Prophet,"  and  the  "  Prophecy  of  Ahijah  the 
Shilonite,"  and  "the  Visions  of  Iddo  the  Seer"  (2  Chron., 
ix.,  29),  and  "  Shemaiah  the  Prophet"  (2  Chron.,  xii.,  15), 
they  had  been  absorbed  into  the  volume,  or  had  been 
allowed  to  "  drop  out,"  as  not  pertaining  to  the  design 
of  the  one  book  that  was  to  constitute  the  literature  of 
the  nation.  If,  simultaneously  with  this,  or  in  the  in 
terval  when  one  part  of  the  volume — the  Old  Testa 
ment — was  completed,  and  the  other  part — the  New — 
was  commenced,  there  was  any  thing  that  was,  from 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  241 

any  cause,  deemed  worthy  of  preservation,  it  was  care 
fully  separated  from  the  sacred  books  in  the  "  Apocry 
pha  ;"  if  contemporaneously  with  the  New  Testament, 
or  subsequently,  any  other  literature  existed,  as  the 
writings  of  Philo  and  Josephus,  or  the  Talmud,  this  also 
was  carefully  separated  from,  and  never  confounded 
with,  the  one  volume  that  constituted  the  peculiar  lit 
erature  of  the  nation. 

There  is,  there  has  been  no  other  nation  where  such 
an  organic  literature  has  sprung  up,  the  work  of  many 
authors,  extending  through  many  years,  and  yet  con 
stituting  one  volume.  The  religion  of  China  is  in  a 
book  written  by  one  man — Confucius ;  the  Koran  is 
the  production  of  one  man ;  for  any  thing  that  appears, 
the  Zendavesta  had  a  similar  origin.  The  books  of  In 
dia,  indeed — the  Vedas  and  the  Shasters — have,  in  this 
respect,  some  resemblance  to  the  Bible,  but,  so  far  as 
appears,  they  were  the  productions  of  a  few  authors, 
and  were  composed  in  a  brief  period. 

You  can  not  bind  up  the  literature  of  any  other  peo 
ple,  making  one  organic  volume,  as  the  Bible  is  bound 
up.  You  can  not  thus  bind  up  Grecian  literature  in 
one  volume.  You  have  Homer,  and  Hesiod,  and  Herod 
otus,  and  Thucydides,  and  Aristotle,  and  Plato,  and 
Sophocles,  and  JEschylus,  but  they  would  not,  and  could 
not  make  one  volume,  having  a  beginning,  a  middle, 
and  an  end.  There  is  no  reason  why  it  should  begin 
thus ;  why  it  should  advance  thus ;  and  there  is  no 
catastrophe  at  its  close.  It  is  not  one  book.  They  are 
many  books.  There  is  no  unity.  They  are  not  the 
production  of  one  class  of  men,  except  as  the  Greeks 
in  general  were  distinguished  from  the  rest  of  mankind. 

In  this  view,  too,  the  length  of  time  is  to  be  noticed 
during  which  the  composition  was  going  on.  The  Bi- 

L 


242  LECTURES    ON   THE 

ble  is  not  the  production  of  one  age,  so  that  it  could  be 
considered,  as  certain  groups  of  writings  may  be,  as  the 
development  of  that  age ;  it  is  the  production  of  many 
ages,  and  the  composition  was  quietly  going  on  at  the 
same  time  in  which  the  most  important  changes  and 
revolutions  were  occurring  in  the  earth.  During  the 
time  of  its  composition  kingdoms  rose  and  fell ;  great 
conquerors  founded  empires,  acquired  immortality,  and 
they  and  their  kingdoms  passed  away ;  new  discoveries 
were  made  in  science  and  in  art;  vast  revolutions  oc 
curred  in  human  affairs.  Unaffected  by  these  changes, 
the  composition  of  the  Bible  was  quietly  going  on,  and 
the  men  engaged  in  the  work  calmly  performed  their 
task,  as  a  man  would  in  a  cave,  sheltered  by  rocks, 
while  storms  and  tempests  howled  around  him.  For  a 
period  of  sixteen  hundred  years  from  the  composition 
of  the  first  book — the  book  of  Job — to  the  book  of  Rev 
elation,  that  work  was  calmly  advancing — the  writers 
now  appearing  in  groups,  and  the  work  now  interrupt 
ed  by  intervals  of  hundreds  of  years,  till  the  last  dec 
laration  was  uttered,  "  Surely  I  come  quickly ;  amen. 
Even  so,  come,  Lord  Jesus ;"  winding  up  the  volume  and 
the  work.  The  idea  of  unity  is  one  that  runs  through 
all  that  period.  The  plan  is  slowly  developed.  The 
plan  is  finally  consummated  by  one — John  in  Patmos — 
as  unlike  as  can  well  be  conceived  in  language,  in  at 
tainments,  in  style,  and  manner,  the  man  who  at  least 
sixteen  hundred  years  before  put  pen  to  the  whole  work 
in  the  language,  "  There  was  a  man  in  the  land  of  Uz 
whose  name  was  Job ;"  or,  if  Genesis  was  the  first  book 
written,  as  it  is  the  first  in  the  Bible  now,  in  the  lan 
guage,  "  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and 
the  earth."  Meantime  they  never  copied  from  one  an 
other.  They  never  seem  to  have  been  conscious  that 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  243 

there  was  &plan  slowly  developing  itself.  They  never 
mutilated  or  shaped  facts  so  as  to  fit  in  to  such  a  plan ; 
they  never  modified  the  statement  of  events  so  that  they 
would  seem  to  be  a  fulfillment  of  that  plan.  Moses,  and 
David,  and  Isaiah,  and  Paul,  and  John  are  as  independ 
ent  of  each  other  as  Hesiod,  and  Homer,  and  Plato. 
The  sacred  writers  were  not  a  corporation,  a  company, 
a  society,  to  write  up  a  certain  system,  nor  were  there 
revisers  of  their  writings  so  to  shape  and  alter  them  as 
to  secure  unanimity  and  unity.  The  "Dunciad"  was 
written  by  concert;  the  "Spectator"  was  written  by 
concert ;  Pope's  Homer  was  translated  by  different  au 
thors  under  his  direction,  and  united  by  him  in  one ;  the 
German  critics  sometimes  tell  us  that  the  Iliad  itself 
was  not  written  by  one  Homer,  but  by  many;  the 
dramas  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  are  always  in  one 
volume — "Beaumont  and  Fletcher" — apparently  joint 
productions ;  but  in  the  composition  of  the  Bible  each 
man  pursued  his  own  plan,  for  Moses,  and  Isaiah,  and 
Paul  were  perfectly  independent  authors. 

This  is  the  more  remarkable,  because  a  great  change 
occurred  in  passing  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New. 
The  old  system,  with  all  the  peculiar  laws  and  institu 
tions  pertaining  to  it,  was  to  give  way,  and  a  new  sys 
tem  to  be  introduced — Christianity  living  to  be  super 
induced  upon  Judaism  dying.  The  difficulty  was  how, 
in  a  system  so  unlike,  and  where  one  was  to  expire  and 
the  other  to  rise  into  life,  the  one  could  be  made  to  ap 
pear  to  run  into  the  other.  Is  Christianity  a  develop 
ment  of  Judaism  ?  Would  men  under  their  own  guid 
ance,  and  without  some  higher  influence,  have  developed 
the  old  system — the  Jewish  system — the  system  of  the 
prophets — into  Christianity  ?  Not  at  all.  It  would  have 
been,  under  such  a  guidance,  Judaism  still ;  Judaism 


244  LECTURES    ON   THE 

refined  and  expanded,  Judaism  adapted  to  the  whole 
world,  but  Judaism  still.  And  yet  the  New  Testament 
is  a  development — a  filling  up — a  completion  of  the  sys 
tem  of  the  Old,  and  the  entire  Book — the  Bible — is  one. 
It  is  susceptible  of  easy  proof  that  one  part  is  the  com 
pletion  or  complement  of  the  other,  as  the  two  parts  of 
a  tally,  or  as  "  complementary"  colors ;  not  as  the  Jews 
would  have  done  it,  but  as  it  was  intended  it  should  be. 
There  is  a  scheme  commenced.  There  is  an  anticipa 
tion.  There  is  a  progress.  There  is  a  completion  in 
the  Messiah.  There  is  the  unfolding  of  a  plan  running 
in  its  statements  through  many  centuries;  one  writer 
in  one  age  stating  one  thing,  and  another  in  another, 
as  if  in  one  age  one  artist  should  have  fashioned  an  arm, 
and  another  a  leg ;  one  a  hand,  and  another  a  foot ;  one 
the  nose,  another  the  lips,'  another  the  chin ;  one  the 
form  and  size  of  the  head,  and  another  the  body ;  and 
all  at  last  should  have  been  put  together  in  the  form  of 
Minerva  or  Apollo. 

The  completion  of  the  plan  in  the  New  Testament  is 
different  from  what  a  Jew  would  have  made,  but  it  is 
a  completion.  He  would  have  made  the  Messiah  of  the 
New  Testament  a  prince,  a  conqueror,  a  king ;  he  would 
not  have  made  him  a  poor  man,  a  despised  man,  a  suf 
ferer  ;  the  true  completion  was  that  he  was  indeed  a 
prince,  a  king,  a  conqueror,  but  that  he  was  at  the  same 
time,  and  eminently,  poor,  despised,  and  a  sufferer.  But 
this  accords,  in  fact,  after  all,  with  the  Old  Testament, 
for  he  was  to  spring  from  the  decayed  family  of  Jesse  and 
David ;  he  was  to  be  despised  and  rejected  of  men ;  he 
was  to  be  a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief; 
his  grave  was  to  be  appointed  with  the  wicked,  but  with 
the  rich  man  was  he  to  be  in  his  death,  and  yet  he  was 
to  be  a  conqueror  and  a  king,  with  a  dominion  wider 


EVIDENCES    OF  CHRISTIANITY.  245 

than  Caesar  ever  won,  and  an  empire  more  enduring 
than  any  of  the  dynasties  of  kings. 

And  if  this  is  true,  then  there  is  this  presumption  in 
the  case,  that  it  was  under  the  guidance  of  One  Mind, 
that  it  is  the  product  of  one  plan,  that  it  is  not  the  work 
of  many  minds  acting  independently  or  in  concert,  but 
that  there  was  one  presiding  Intellect  that  guided  all 
these  writers,  and  adjusted  all  these  parts  one  to  an 
other,  as  much  as  there  must  have  been  if  there  had 
been  separate  laborers  working  independently  of  each 
other,  and  through  many  centuries,  in  forming  the  dif 
ferent  parts  of  the  Venus  de  Medici  or  the  Apollo  Bel- 
videre. 

II.  The  second  point  will  relate  to  a  peculiarity  in 
books  as  such,  and  in  respect  to  which  what  has  occur 
red  to  the  Bible  considered  as  a  book  can  be  best  ex 
plained  on  the  supposition  that  it  is  an  inspired  volume. 

Books  fall  away  in  the  progress  of  society ;  they  drop' 
out  of  notice ;  they  accomplish  their  purpose ;  they  are 
not  missed.  The  peculiarity  of  the  Bible  on  which  I 
wish  to  remark,  and  from  which  I  shall  draw  this  part 
of  my  argument,  is,  that  the  Bible  is  not  a  book  of  this 
class.  It  does  not  drop  out  of  notice ;  it  has  not  accom 
plished  its  purpose ;  it  does  not  fall  away  in  the  prog 
ress  of  events ;  it  would  be  missed ;  it  will  not  and 
could  not  be  spared. 

There  are  three  classes  of  books  of  the  kind  that  I 
now  refer  to. 

There  are,  first,  those  which,  though  they  are  founded 
on  truth,  yet  have  no  such  merit  as  to  make  the  world 
anxious  to  retain  them.  They  have  a  local  bearing  and 
a  local  reputation,  but  have  no  claim  on  the  general  at 
tention  of  mankind,  and  no  merit  that  will  convey  them 
down  from  age  to  age.  The  old  paths  are  strewed  with 


246  LECTURES    ON   THE 

these  remains  of  literature,  and  advancing  generations 
have  no  interest  in  gathering  them  up  and  preserving 
them ;  and  any  man  that  makes  a  book  must  lay  to  his 
soul — no  very  "  flattering  unction" — the  idea  that  prob 
ably  this  will  be  the  fate  of  the  book  that  he  makes. 
Commonplace  books,  poetry,  novels,  travels,  biogra 
phies,  histories,  works  of  science,  works  on  art,  are  thus 
dropped  out  of  view  and  perish,  or  are  preserved  in  the 
alcoves  of  a  great  library,  or  are  among  the  rarities 
which  antiquarians  gather.  The  prima  facie  evidence 
in  regard  to  an  old  book  is  that  it  is  worthless,  because 
it  is  rare ;  for  if  it  had  been  valuable  it  would  have  been 
reprinted,  and  would  not  have  been  rare. 

There  are,  secondly,  those  which  have  been  superseded 
by  better  books  on  the  same  subject.  Of  these  the 
number  is  already  vastly  large,  and  is  constantly  accu 
mulating.  Multitudes  of  books  once  useful  have  drop 
ped  away  from  the  memory  of  mankind  to  be  recovered 
no  more — books  that  are  gone  with  the  volumes  of 
Nathan  the  Prophet  and  Iddo  the  Seer  (2  Chron.,  ix., 
29) — books  that  have  absolutely  perished,  while  those 
that  remain  of  that  class  go  largely  to  swell  the  num 
ber  of  volumes  on  the  shelves  of  our  great  libraries — 
books  useful  as  illustrating  the  history  of  science  and 
art,  and  the  development  of  human  affairs — books  useful 
to  the  antiquarian,  but  books  no  longer  useful  as  rep 
resenting  the  real  state  of  human  knowledge.  Science 
is  enlarged.  What  was  formerly  regarded  as  science 
is  no  longer  such ;  and  the  books  of  Galen,  Hippocrates, 
Mela,  Roger  Bacon,  occupy  substantially  the  same  place 
in  science  which  the  works  of  Abelard  and  Duns  Scotus 
— may  I  not  add  Turretin — do  in  theology.  The  chem 
istry  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  chemistry  of  Bagdad,  w^as 
a  different  thing  from  the  chemistry  of  Lavoisier,  of 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  247 

Priestley,  of  Black,  and  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy ;  and  the 
books  even  of  these  men  are  also  vanishing  fast,  and  are 
taking  their  places  with  those  that  are  mainly  interest 
ing  to  the  antiquarian  alone. 

There  are,  thirdly,  books  that  are  false  in  science,  in 
philosophy,  in  the  facts  affirmed,  that  pass  away,  of 
course,  when  the  truth  is  discovered.  All  the  works  of 
Ptolemy,  and  all  the  books  founded  on  the  Ptolemaic 
system  of  the  heavens,  ingenious,  labored,  and  profound 
as  they  were,  passed  away,  of  course,  when  the  Coper- 
nican  theory  was  established;  and  those  books  now, like 
thousands  of  others,  are  of  use  only  as  marking  the  his 
tory  of  science,  or  as  illustrating  the  powers  of  the  hu 
man  mind,  or  as  showing,  by  contrast,  the  wonderful 
wisdom  of  the  Creator  in  the  actual  structure  of  the 
universe  and  the  beauty  of  the  Copernican  system. 

The  question  now  is,  Whether  the  Bible  is  a  book 
that  belongs  to  either  of  these  classes  ;  a  book  to  pass 
away  with  advancing  knowledge,  and  in  the  progress 
of  ages ;  a  book  to  be  dropped ;  a  book  that  is  to  lie 
hidden  in  the  alcoves  of  great  libraries ;  a  book  that  is 
to  be  of  interest  and  value  only  to  the  antiquarian.  If 
it  is  not  so,  then  why  is  not  so  ? 

The  Bible  is  not  a  book  to  be  dropped  and  forgotten. 
Whatever  may  be  said  of  it,  it  is  not  to  occupy  the 
same  place  as  those  books  wThich,  from  any  cause,  the 
world  is  "  willing  to  let  die."  It  has  held  its  place  in 
the  world  longer  than  any  other  book  or  books,  unless 
it  be  true  that  the  writings  of  Confucius  go  back  to  as 
remote  a  period  as  the  composition  of  the  book  of  Job. 
It  has  passed  through  innumerable  revolutions  in  gov 
ernments,  in  opinions,  in  philosophy,  in  manners,  cus 
toms,  and  laws.  It  has  made  its  way  in  the  world  under 
all  forms  of  government — monarchical,  aristocratic,  re- 


248  LECTURES    ON   THE 

publican,  democratic.  It  has  held  on  its  steady  course 
when  Aristotle  was  in  the  ascendant  and  controlled  the 
mind  of  Europe,  and  when  he  was  dethroned,  and  Plato 
rose  in  the  ascendant.  It  has  held  its  way  in  the  great 
change  from  the  Ptolemaic  to  the  Copernican  systems 
of  astronomy,  and  in  all  the  revolutions  which  have 
been  made  in  science  and  the  arts.  Many  of  those  arts 
and  much  of  that  science  it  has  modified ;  many  of  the 
laws  which  rule  among  the  nations,  and  no  small  part 
of  the  customs  of  social  life  among  the  most  refined 
people,  it  has  originated  or  shaped;  it  has  seen  systems 
of  government  and  systems  of  religion  pass  away,  and 
it  still  lives.  The  Bible,  in  the  parts  then  composed,  was 
among  the  books  that  influenced  human  affairs  when 
Nineveh  stood  where  its  buried  ruins  now  are ;  when 
Babylon  was  great  and  magnificent,  where  now  the 
wild  beasts  of  the  desert  lie  down,  and  satyrs  dance, 
and  owls  dwell,  and  dragons  cry  (Isa.,  xiii.,  22) ;  when 
Tyre  was  the  mistress  of  the  seas,  now  a  place  where 
the  fisherman  dries  his  nets ;  long  before  Hesiod  and 
Homer  sang;  when  uncivilized  and  savage  men  wan 
dered  over  the  Seven  Hills  on  the  Tiber,  and  when  not 
a  hut  stood  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames. 

The  Bible  has  survived  all  attacks,'  and  they  have  not 
been  few  or  unskillful ;  and  it  has  now  a  hold  on  the 
world  which  it  never  had  before,  and  the  world  would 
now  more  unwillingly  than  ever  before  "  let  it  die."  It 
is  translated  into  more  languages  than  any  other  book ; 
it  has  been  transcribed  more  frequently,  and  with  more 
care,  than  any  other  book ;  it  is  more  frequently  printed 
than  any  other  book ;  it  is  more  embellished  with  the 
highest  ornaments  of  art  than  any  other  book;  it  lies 
on  more  tables  in  the  dwellings  of  the  intelligent  and 
the  refined  than  any  other  book.  More  cultivated  minds 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  249 

have  been  employed  in  defending  and  illustrating  it 
than  any  other  book ;  more  learning  has  been  expended 
on  it  than  on  any  other  book ;  more  keen  and  sagacious 
criticism  has  been  employed  on  it  than  perhaps  on  all 
other  books  put  together.  More  such  minds  are  en 
gaged  in  defending  it  now  than  ever  were  before.  More 
men  are  employed  in  translating  it,  and  more  presses 
are  at  work  in  printing  it  than  ever  before.  It  is  doing 
more  to  influence  the  world  than  it  has  done  in  any  for 
mer  age.  It  is  working  its  way  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth ;  changing  customs  and  laws ;  originating  in 
stitutions  of  learning  and  benevolence ;  modifying  pun 
ishments;  influencing  the  treatment  of  prisoners;  break 
ing  off  the  shackles  of  slavery ;  and  elevating  the  char 
acter  and  position  of  woman,  as  it  has  never  done  before. 
It  is  recognized  as  authority  in  more  colleges  and  schools 
than  it  has  ever  been  before ;  and  if  there  are  more  at 
tacks  made  on  it  from  scientific  sources,  it  is  also  true 
that  more  defenders  from  the  same  source  arise  to  show 
that  it  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  best  deductions  of 
science.  The  simplest  and  most  philosophical  way  of 
explaining  all  this  is,  that  the  book  had  a  higher  origin 
than  man. 

III.  My  third  remark  will  relate  to  the  place  which 
the  Bible  has  in  history,  and  the  point  of  the  remark 
will  be,  that  the  Bible  contains  records  and  statements 
on  historical  subjects  which  can  be  best  explained  also 
on  the  supposition  that  it  is  an  inspired  book. 

(1.)  The  first  observation  here  is,  that  it  is  the  only 
history  of  the  world  that  traces  human  affairs  up  to 
their  origin.  Following  back  any  other  history,  and  en 
deavoring  to  ascertain  the  origin  of  things  in  the  early 
transactions  in  our  world,  we  soon  come  to  the  region 
of  fable,  of  legend,  of  myth,  of  night;  we  reach  a  point 
L  2 


250  LECTUEES    ON   THE 

where  all  anterior  in  the  history  is  manifestly  the  work 
of  the  imagination  or  the  invention  of  national  pride. 
In  Egypt,  in  India,  in  China,  in  the  African  tribes,  in 
Mexico  and  Peru,  and  to  a  great  extent  in  Greece,  we 
soon  come  into  the  region  of  night ;  and  even  of  Rome, 
who,  since  the  work  of  Niebuhr,  will  affirm,  notwith 
standing  the  records  of  Livy,  that  we  have  any  exact 
knowledge  of  what  occurred  in  its  early  history  ?  Be 
gin,  in  your  investigation  of  past  events,  where  profane 
history  begins,  and  you  are  plunged  into  the  midst  of  a 
state  of  affairs  of  whose  origin  you  know  nothing,  and 
where  the  mind  wanders  in  perfect  night  and  can  find 
no  rest.  Kingdoms  are  seen,  but  no  one  can  tell  when 
or  how  they  were  founded ;  cities  appear  whose  origin 
no  one  knows ;  heroes  are  playing  their  part  in  the  great 
and  mysterious  drama,  but  no  one  knows  whence  they 
came  or  what  are  their  designs ;  races  of  beings  are 
seen  whose  origin  is  unknown,  and  the  past  periods  of 
whose  existence  upon  the  earth  no  one  can  determine — 
races  formed  no  one  can  tell  for  what  purpose  or  by 
what  hand.  Vast  multitudes  of  beings  are  suffering 
and  dying  for  causes  which  no  one  can  explain;  one 
generation  in  its  own  journey  to  the  grave  treads  over 
the  monuments  of  extinct  generations,  and  with  the  me 
morials  of  fearful  changes  and  convulsions  in  the  past 
all  around  it  of  which  no  one  can  give  an  account.  Be 
gin  your  knowledge  of  the  past  at  the  remotest  period 
to  which  profane  history  would  conduct  you,  and  you 
are  in  the  midst  of  chaos,  and  you  can  not  advance  a 
single  step  without  plunging  into  deeper  night — a  night 
strikingly  resembling  that  described  in  the  oldest  book 
in  the  Bible  itself,  and  the  oldest  book  in  the  world,  as 
the  abode  of  the  dead :  "  The  land  of  darkness  and  the 
shadow  of  death ;  a  land  of  darkness  as  darkness  itself; 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  251 

and  of  the  shadow  of  death  without  any  order,  and 
where  the  light  is  as  darkness"  (Job,  x.,  21,  22). 

(2.)  The  Bible  is  the  only  book  that  explains  the  ori 
gin  of  things — the  creation  of  the  earth  and  the  heav 
ens — the  creation  of  man,  and  the  creation  of  the  vege 
tables  and  animals  that  people  the  globe.  True  science 
does  not  pretend  to  explain  those  things ;  for,  whatever 
false  science  may  attempt,  true  science  pauses  before  it 
reaches  the  point  of  the  creation  of  matter  or  the  origin 
of  life.  It  finds  matter,  and  it  finds  life,  at  the  begin 
ning  of  all  its  own  investigations ;  nor  do  the  labors  of 
the  chemist  and  of  the  physiologist  go  behind  those 
facts  as  already  existing  to  tell  how  they  came  into  be 
ing.  The  Bible  does. 

(3.)  The  Bible,  so  far  as  secular  history  becomes  in 
telligible,  and  at  the  point  where  it  becomes  intelligi 
ble,  accords  with  and  explains  the  existing  state  of 
things.  The  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis,  almost  entirely 
a  dry  list  of  names — apparently  as  dry  and  unmeaning 
as  the  muster-roll  of  an  army,  or  as  Homer's  list  of  he 
roes  and  ships  in  the  first  book  of  the  Iliad — contains, 
in  fact,  the  only  clear  and  intelligible  account  of  the 
peopling  of  our  globe,  and  the  origin  of  the  nations  that 
now  dwell  upon  the  earth.  It  is  a  document  which 
could  not  have  been  fabricated  any  more  than  one  be 
forehand  could  fabricate  the  names  of  the  soldiers  in  an 
army,  and  yet  it  is  the  only  document  which  we  pos 
sess  that  tells  how  the  world  was  divided  and  settled. 
The  nations  that  dwell  in  Europe,  in  Asia,  and  in  Afri 
ca  can,  for  the  most  part,  be  distinctly  traced  up  in 
their  origin  to  the  men  whose  names  occur  there  ;  and 
without  this  dry  document,  all  accounts  of  the  peopling 
of  the  globe  would  be  darkness  and  chaos. 

(4.)  The  Bible  explains  facts  that  exist  which  would 
be  otherwise  inexplicable. 


252  LECTURES    ON   THE 

In  a  state  of  feeling  now  extensively  prevalent  among 
scientific  men,  there  are  many  who  would  shrink  from 
avowing  their  belief  in  the  first  four  chapters  of  Gene 
sis,  and  there  are  many  who  would  desire  to  turn  those 
chapters  into  myth  and  fable,  as  containing  statements 
which  no  scientific  man  would  literally  receive.  In  a 
course  of  lectures,  or  even  in  preaching,  it  might  seem 
to  the  view  of  many  such  men  to  argue  more  of  reck 
lessness  than  of  prudence  to  select  those  chapters  as 
the  subject  of  illustration,  and  there  are  not  a  few  hav 
ing  high  claims  to  eminence  in  science  who  would  turn 
away  from  the  statements  in  those  chapters  as  belong 
ing  wholly  to  myths  and  legends. 

Yet  in  those  chapters  are  contained  all  that  we  know, 
if  we  know  any  thing  in  regard  to  the  origin  of  the  real 
facts  that  exist  in  our  world.  We,  who  hold  to  the  in 
spiration  of  the  Bible,  believe  that  the  record  in  those 
chapters  will  explain  the  origin  of  all  that  now  exists 
on  earth ;  we  are  certain  that  if  that  explanation  fails, 
we  shall  look  in  vain  elsewhere  for  any  explanation — to 
history ;  to  the  reasonings  of  philosophers ;  to  the  geol 
ogist  ;  to  the  antiquarian ;  to  the  poets. 

(a)  Those  chapters  explain  the  origin  of  things — the 
creation  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  Science  does 
not  explain  the  creation  of  the  world — the  origin  of  the 
universe.  It  has  no  facts  on  that  subject  with  which 
to  deal ;  its  work  commences  when  the  work  of  crea 
tion  is  done;  when  matter  already  has  a  being,  and 
when  the  laws  of  matter  are  already  established.  It 
explains  the  laws  by  which  the  elements  of  matter  com 
bine  or  are  moved,  not  how  they  were  made ;  it  ex 
plains  the  proportion  of  the  sixty  or  more  substances 
of  which  our  world  is  composed ;  the  laws  of  the  chem 
ical  elements ;  the  laws  of  galvanism,  of  light,  of  heat, 
of  electricity,  of  life — not  how  they  were  made. 


•EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  253 

(b)  The  Bible  explains  the  order  in  which  things  were 
made  on  the  earth.     Till  the  discoveries  in  the  recent 
science  of  geology,  the  world  has  been  in  the  dark  in  re 
gard  to  that  order,  and  the  naked  statement  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis,  appealing,  up  to  that  period — that 
is,  for  nearly  six  thousand  years — to  the  mere  faith  of 
mankind,  has  been  all  that  the  world  has  had  to  rely 
on.    Two  things  are  remarkable  in  regard  to  that  state 
ment  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  with  all  that  there 
is  in  the  chapter  still  unexplained  and  mysterious :  one 
is,  that  the  order  of  the  creation  as  there  stated  corre 
sponds  with  singular  accuracy  with  the  order  as  dis 
closed  by  geology ;  the  other  is,  that  geology  now  af 
firms,  from  the  testimony  of  the  earth  itself,  that  there 
were  successive  creations,  as  is  affirmed  in  Genesis;  in 
other  words,  that  one  class  of  animals  has  not  been  de 
veloped  from  a  previous  order  of  beings.     The  Bible  af 
firms  thus ;  and  if  there  is  any  one  thing  now  clear  in 
the  developments  of  geology,  it  is,  that  one  race  was 
swept  off  to  make  way  for  another ;  and  that  one  suc 
ceeded  another  in  a  certain  order,  and  that  order  is  the 
one  found  in  the  Bible;  that  man  was  the  last  in  the 
series  of  the  creations ;  and  that  there  has  been,  in  fact, 
no  work  of  creation — no  new  matter  formed — no  new 
races  of  animals  or  vegetables  brought  upon  the  earth 
since  man  appeared.    "  Thus,"  says  Moses, "  the  heavens 
and  the  earth  were  finished,  and  all  the  host  of  them" 
(Gen.,  ii.,  1).     How  did  Moses,  or  whoever  was  the  au 
thor  of  the  statement  in  Genesis,  know  this  f    What  are 
the  probabilities  that  an  ancient  writer  uninspired,  un 
dertaking  to  give  an  account  of  the  creation  of  the 
world,  would  hit  on  that  order?    Where  else  has  it 
been  done ;  where  has  it  been  hinted  at  f 

(c)  The  Bible  affirms  and  explains  the  fact  to  which 


254  LECTURES    ON   THE 

all  true  science  is  tending — the  unity  of  the  race.  That 
fact  is  stated  and  affirmed ;  that  fact  is  the  basis  of  the 
doctrine  of  universal  depravity  as  stated  in  the  Bible ; 
that  fact  is  the  foundation  of  all  its  statements  about 
the  work  of  redemption ;  that  fact  is  the  foundation  of 
all  that  there  is  in  the  Bible  in  regard  to  the  rights  of 
man. 

But  that  fact  of  the  unity  of  the  race  has  been  by  no 
means  apparent  to  men,  and  is  a  doctrine  the  statement 
of  which  in  the  Bible  is  most  easily  explained  by  the 
idea  of  inspiration,  even  if  it  can  be  explained  in  any 
other  way.  It  is  morally  certain  now  that  men  will 
come  up  to  that  doctrine  in  their  own  investigations; 
but  it  is  by  no  means  a  doctrine  so  obvious  that  it 
wrould  be  laid  at  the  foundation  of  a  system  as  a  mat 
ter  of  course,  or  a  doctrine  in  reference  to  which  there 
are  no  scientific  difficulties  to  be  removed.  The  varie 
ties  of  language ;  the  varieties  of  complexion ;  the  forms 
of  the  skull,  and  the  facial  angle,  and  many  other  things 
in  the  formation  and  anatomy  of  the  human  frame,  fa 
miliar  to  those  who  have  devoted  their  attention  to  this 
subject;  the  varieties  in  the  four  great  divisions  of  the 
race — the  Mongolian,  the  Caucasian,  the  Ethiopian,  the 
American — all  show  how  daring  and  bold,  so  to  speak, 
was  the  doctrine  laid  at  the  very  foundation  of  the 
whole  book,  that  the  races  of  men  are  all  descended 
from  one  pair ;  that "  God  has  made  of  one  blood  all  the 
nations  of  men,  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth" 
(Acts,  xvii.,  26) ;  and  that  "the  whole  earth  was  of  one 
language  and  of  one  speech"  (Gen.,  xi.,  1).  Yet  the 
tendency  of  science  now  is  to  demonstrate  the  unity  of 
the  human  race;  its  tendency  also  is  to  demonstrate 
the  original  oneness  of  language.  All  the  languages 
of  the  earth  have  been  traced  with  very  great  clearness 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  255 

now  to  three  sources,  with  the  highest  probability  that 
they  will  yet  be  traced  back  to  one ;  and  it  has  not  yet 
been  demonstrated  that  the  varieties  of  the  human  race 
in  complexion  and  in  anatomical  structure  are  not  sus 
ceptible  of  explanation  on  the  supposition  that  the  race 
was  originally  one. 

Man,  in  the  mean  time,  in  the  Bible,  is  kept  wholly 
distinct  from  all  the  inferior  creation.  A  line  as  marked 
as  any  line  can  be  runs  through  the  Bible  between  man 
and  all  the  inferior  races.  There  is  no  intimation  that 
one  has  been  developed  from  the  other,  or  that  the  one 
is  to  be  treated  as  the  other.  Man  alone  is  a  moral 
agent;  is  subject  to  law;  is  responsible.  Man  is  a  sin 
ner;  is  redeemed;  is  immortal.  Man  is  made  in  the 
image  of  God.  He  has  a  soul.  He  is  a  wandering  child 
of  God,  to  be  governed  by  moral  law ;  to  be  restrained 
by  motives ;  to  be  guided  by  truth ;  to  be  redeemed  by 
the  blood  of  the  atonement ;  to  live  forever  with  God. 
He  is  not  derived  or  developed  from  the  ourang-outang 
or  the  monkey ;  he  is,  in  the  Bible,  a  new  creation,  as 
geology  now  affirms  him  to  have  been. 

Whence  came  these  views  and  thoughts  into  the 
minds  of  the  sacred  writers  ?  How,  on  subjects  so  diffi 
cult,  and  on  which  there  was  to  be  such  variety  in  the 
opinions  of  men  before  these  truths  were  reached  by 
the  slow  process  of  science,  did  they  at  once  anticipate 
all  that  would  be  established  on  the  subject  in  the  far- 
distant  ages,  and  state  at  the  outset  what  man  would  be 
led  to  believe  at  the  last  f  The  simplest  explanation  of . 
this  is,  that  that  Eternal  Spirit  that  sees  and  knows  all 
truth  guided  them  above  the  exercise  of  their  own  pow 
ers  to  the  statement  of  those  truths  to  which  the  world 
would  at  last  come,  but  which  would  be  reached  by 
men  in  their  own  investigations  only  after  ages  had 
passed  away. 


256  LECTURES    ON   THE 

The  time  will  not  allow  me  to  pursue  this  train  of 
thought  farther,  or  to  apply  it  to  other  subjects  that  lie 
equally  within  its  range.  A  farther  application  of  the 
thought  would  relate  to  such  subjects  as  the  fall  of 
man,  and  the  fact  of  universal  depravity ;  to  the  place 
which  man  occupies  among  the  creatures  of  God  here 
below;  to  the  subject  of  death  —  especially  death  in 
man ;  to  the  origin  of  the  languages  of  the  earth,  and 
to  the  dispersion  of  the  nations.  The  question  in  re 
gard  to  all  these  points  would  be  whether  any  men 
would  have  been  likely  to  have  made  the  statements  in 
the  Bible  unless  they  were  inspired. 

IV.  The  fourth  point  to  which  I  shall  advert  in  illus 
tration  of  the  subject  of  inspiration  will  pertain  to  the 
truths  communicated  in  the  Bible.  The  argument  in 
the  case  will  be,  that  those  truths  lie  beyond  the  range 
of  the  unaided  human  powers. 

This  remark  might  be  illustrated  on  a  wide  scale  in 
reference  to  the  powers  of  the  human  mind  as  existing 
any  where,  and,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  proposition, 
it  would  be  that  those  truths  are  beyond  the  highest 
human  intellects,  or  the  power  of  such  intellects  to  orig 
inate  them,  however  those  powers  may  be  cultivated — 
beyond  the  reach  and  range  of  philosophy  in  its  purest 
and  most  exalted  forms.  It  might  be  questionable  with 
some  whether  that  could  be  demonstrated,  but  it  is  not 
necessary  to  consider  that  particular  point  in  illustrat 
ing  the  proposition  now  before  us.  The  real  inquiry  is 
4  whether  those  truths  were  beyond  the  natural  powers 
of  the  men  actually  employed  in  composing  the  Bible. 
It  may  be,  indeed,  that  the  natural  powers  of  those  men 
were  not  inferior  to  the  highest  forms  of  intellect  known 
elsewhere  in  philosophy  and  science ;  it  may  be  that 
the  intellects  of  Moses,  and  Isaiah,  and  David,  and  Paul 


EVIDENCES    OF  CHRISTIANITY.  257 

were  by  nature  equal  to  the  great  lawgivers,  poets, 
reasoners,  orators,  philosophers  of  the  world,  and  that, 
in  themselves,  they  deserve  a  place  by  the  side  of 
Numa,  and  Lycurgus,  and  Demosthenes,  and  Plato,  and 
Burke ;  but  still  the  real  question  now  is  whether  they, 
whatever  were  their  native  endowments,  were  compe 
tent,  without  aid  from  on  high,  to  disclose  the  truths 
actually  found  in  the  Bible.  We  are  to  remember,  too, 
that  whatever  were  the  native  endowments  of  Moses, 
and  Isaiah,  and  David,  and  Paul,  they  were  not  the  only 
men  employed  in  writing  the  Bible.  The  Bible  is  not 
their  work  alone.  They  are  not  its  authors  as  a  whole. 
We  are  to  bear  in  mind  who  they  were  associated  with, 
and  then  to  inquire  whether  the  peasants,  and  shep 
herds,  and  fishermen  that,  in  fact,  wrote  a  large  part  of 
the  Bible,  were  competent  to  be  associated  with  them 
in  the  composition  of  the  Bible  as  a  whole — whether  a 
common  stone-mason  could  be  associated  with  Phidias 
in  the  design  of  the  Minerva,  or  common  bricklayers 
with  Michael  Angelo  in  the  structure  of  St.  Peter's,  and 
in  the  mosaics  that  adorn  it. 

(1.)  Who,  then,  were  the  men  that  actually  wrote  the 
Bible? 

The  Bible  came  from  a  land  undistinguished  for  lit 
erature  ;  a  land  not  rich  in  classical  associations ;  a  land 
not  distinguished  for  pushing  its  discoveries  into  the 
region  of  science.  Chaldea  had  its  observatory,  and  the 
dwellers  there  early  looked  out  on  the  stars  and  gave 
them  names;  Egypt  had  its  temples  where  the  truths 
of  science,  as  well  as  the  precepts  of  religion,  were  com 
mitted  to  the  sacred  priesthood ;  Greece  had  academic 
groves;  but  Judea  had  neither.  To  such  things  the 
attention  of  the  nation  was  never  turned.  We  have  all 
their  literature ;  all  their  science ;  all  their  knowledge 


258  LECTURES    ON   THE 

of  art — and  all  this  is  in  the  Bible.  Among  the  ancients 
they  were  regarded  as  a  narrow-minded,  a  bigoted,  a 
superstitious  people.  They  did  not  travel  abroad  as 
Greek  philosophers  did,  to  converse  with  sages  in  other 
lands,  nor  did  they  ever  seem  anxious  to  obtain  any 
knowledge  except  that  which  was  originated  in  their 
own  land.  Pythagoras  and  Plato  went  abroad  to  con 
verse  with  the  -wise  of  other  lands ;  Herodotus  to  learn 
the  facts  of  history ;  Solon  and  Lycurgus  left  their 
country  to  observe  the  working  of  the  laws  in  other 
countries,  and  to  give  sanction  to  their  own;  but  Moses 
left  the  court  of  Pharaoh  and  went  into  a  desert;  Isaiah, 
Daniel,  and  David  never  traveled  to  gain  knowledge, 
and  though  Paul  traveled  much  and  far,  it  was  never 
to  gain  knowledge,  but  to  impart  it  to  mankind.  The 
idea  is,  that  in  the  various  departments  of  literature 
they  could  not  come  into  competition  with  the  classic 
writers  of  antiquity ;  that  they  made  no  pretensions  to 
philosophy;  that  they  were  undistinguished  in  what 
the  world  regards  as  learning  and  eloquence ;  and,  es 
pecially,  that  they  had  almost  no  knowledge  of  science 
as  understood  in  the  present  age.  They  made  no  pre 
tensions  to  what  now  constitutes  the  science  of  astron 
omy,  chemistry,  anatomy,  mechanics ;  and,  as  compared 
with  the  philosophers  of  Greece,  and  the  literary  and 
scientific  men  of  Germany,  France,  England,  and  our 
own  country,  the  ancient  Jew  could  have  no  claim  to 
eminence,  nor,  in  relation  to  these  things,  has  he  trans 
mitted  any  thing  that  the  world  thinks  worth  preserv 
ing.  It  may  add  to  the  force  of  this  consideration  to 
remember  that  all  the  eminence  of  any  kind  which  they 
had  in  ancient  times  ceased  with  the  sacred  writers,  and 
that  with  the  exception  of  Josephus  andPhilo,  after  the 
destruction  of  their  Temple,  they  were  of  all  pretended 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  259 

literary  people  the  most  puerile  and  trifling.  They 
wrote  no  poetry  worth  preserving  or  reading;  they 
produced  no  orators  or  historians  of  any  distinction ; 
they  pushed  forward  no  discoveries  in  science,  and  their 
writings,  as  produced  in  the  Talmud,  are  the  most  dis?. 
tinguished  of  all  compositions  for  frivolous  things  and 
for  childish  conceits.  The  writers  of  the  Bible  were 
mostly  shepherds,  peasants,  fishermen,  with  no  other 
and  no  better  training  than  are  now  found  in  men  of 
that  rank  in  life. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  point,  I  may  refer  particu 
larly  to  the  apostle  John.  He  was  a  fisherman  on  the 
Lake  of  Tiberias  when  Jesus  first  saw  him,  and  called 
him  to  the  work  of  an  apostle.  We  have  his  Gospel, 
and  we  have  his  book  of  "Revelation,"  and,  bearing  in 
remembrance  that  he  was  a  fisherman,  we  are  to  ask 
what  would  fishermen  taken  from  the  banks  of  the  Del 
aware,  from  Marblehead  and  Gloucester,  or  from  the 
Banks  of  Newfoundland,  be  likely  to  produce  if  called 
to  compose  a  book  on  the  subject  of  John's  Gospel,  or 
the  Book  of  Revelation  ?  Suppose  he  were  called  to 
delineate  a  perfect  character ;  to  represent  an  incarnate 
God — living,  acting,  and  speaking  with  man,  and  as  a 
man ;  to  compose  or  record  from  memory  discourses  of 
the  profoundest  character  respecting  God ;  to  describe 
future  scenes,  in  the  world's  great  changes,  in  pictures 
and  symbols,  what  would  be  likely  to  be  the  result  of 
such  an  effort  ?  In  illustrating  this  point,  in  language 
better  than  I  can  use,  I  may  be  permitted  here  to  intro 
duce  an  extract  from  a  discourse  by  Dr.  Dwight :  "  The 
apostle  John,"  says  he,  "  was  born  in  an  age  when  the 
philosophy  of  his  country  was  a  mere  mass  of  quib 
bling,  its  religion  a  compound  of  pride  and  bigotry,  and 
its  worship  a  ceremonious  parade.  His  lineage,  his  cir- 


260  LECTURES    ON   THE 

cumstances,  his  education,  and  his  employment  were 
those  of  a  fisherman.  On  what  natural  principle  can  it 
be  accounted  for  that,  like  the  sun  breaking  out  of  an 
evening  cloud,  this  plain  man,  in  these  circumstances, 
should,  at  an  advanced  age,  burst  upon  mankind  with  a 
flood  of  effulgence  and  glory?  Whence  did  it  arise 
that,  in  purity  of  precept,  discernment  of  truth,  and  an 
acquaintance  with  the  moral  character  of  man,  and  the 
attributes  of  his  Maker,  this  peasant  leaves  Socrates, 
Plato,  and  Cicero  out  of  sight  and  out  of  remembrance  ? 
Do  you  question  the  truth  of  this  representation  ?  The 
proof  is  at  hand  and  complete.  There  is  not  a  child  of 
fifteen  in  this  house  who,  if  possessed  of  the  common 
education  of  this  land,  would  not  disdain  to  worship 
their  gods  or  to  embrace  their  religion.  But  Bacon 
and  Boyle ;  Butler  and  Berkeley ;  Newton  and  Locke ; 
Addison  and  Johnson ;  Jones  and  Horseley,  have  sub 
missively  embraced  the  religion  of  St.  John,  and  wor 
shiped  the  God  whose  character  he  has  unfolded.  Their 
systems  have  long  since  gone  to  the  grave  of  oblivion. 
His  has  been  animated  with  increasing  vigor  to  the 
present  hour,  and  will  live  and  flourish  through  endless 
ages.  Their  writings  have  not  made  one  man  virtuous. 
His  have  peopled  heaven  with  the  children  of  light. 
The  seventeenth  chapter  of  his  gospel,  written  as  it  is 
with  the  simplicity  of  a  child,  yet  in  grandeur  of  con 
ception  and  in  splendor  of  moral  excellence  triumphs 
with  inexpressible  glory  over  all  the  efforts  of  human 
genius,  and  looks  down  from  heaven  on  the  proudest 
labors  of  infidelity."* 

(2.)  The  class  of  truths  discussed  and  disclosed  by 
these  men  may  be  referred  to  as  a  second  illustration 
of  the  evidence  of  their  inspiration.     A  remark  or  two, 
*  Sermons,  vol.  ii.,  p.  436,  437. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  261 

• 

without  attempting  now  to  demonstrate  the  truth  of 
the  remark,  or  to  illustrate  it,  is  all  that  the  time  will 
admit. 

(a)  All  that  we  truly  know  about  God  is  from  the 
Bible.     I  say  "  know  /"  I  do  not  say  imagine  or  conjec 
ture.    What  did  the  Egyptians,  the  Persians,  the  Assyr 
ians,  the  Babylonians,  the  Greeks,  the  Romans  know 
about  God  ?    What  did  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Brit 
ain,  the  Druids,  the  Celts,  the  Gaelic  tribes  ?    What  did 
the  Goths,  the  Yandals,  the  Gauls,  the  Visigoths,  that 
came  pouring  down  from  the  North  on  the  Roman  em 
pire  ?    What  do  the  people  of  China,  of  India,  of  Tar 
tar  y,  or  the  tribes  of  Africa  know  ?    What  do  the  fol 
lowers  of  Mohammed,  except  as  Mohammed  learned  it 
from  the  Bible?    What  has  philosophy  ever  taught 
men  about  God  ?    What  does  science  teach  them  now  ? 
Does  the  telescope  reach  his  throne  ?    Does  the  micro 
scope  disclose  him  ?    They  disclose  something,  you  say ; 
and  so  it  may  be,  or  at  least  they  lay  the  foundation  of 
reasoning  about  some  things  pertaining  to  God  —  per 
haps  to  his  existence ;  his  greatness ;  his  power ;  his 
knowledge.     But  how  about  those  things  which  we  are 
most  interested  in  knowing — his  moral  character;  his 
mercy ;  his  justice ;  his  goodness ;  his  truth — about  the 
question  whether  he  is  worthy  of  confidence  ?    How 
long  in  the  laboratory  will  the  chemist  toil  before  he 
will  obtain  from  earths  and  alkalies — from  the  crucible 
and  the  blow-pipe — an  answer  to  these  questions  ?   Just 
as  long  as  his  predecessors  of  the  Middle  Ages,*the  al 
chemists,  would  have  toiled  to  find  the  philosopher's 
stone  or  the  elixir  of  life. 

(b)  All  that  we  know  about  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  we  learn  from  the  Bible.     I  say  here  also,  all  that 
we  " know"  not  what  we  may  conjecture  and  wish  for. 


262  LECTURES    ON    THE 

Do  philosophers  disclose  that  ?  Do  astronomers  ?  Do 
chemists?  Do  scientific  men,  as  such,  even  believe  in 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  ?  If  they  do  believe  it,  do 
they  believe  it  as  the  result  of  their  discoveries  in  sci 
ence  ?  Does  the  chemist  believe  it  because  he  has  found 
the  proof  of  it  in  his  laboratory  ?  Do  mental  philoso 
phers  believe  it  on  the  ground  of  their  own  reasonings  ? 
The  profoundest  argument  on  this  subject  in  ancient  or 
modern  philosophy  is  undoubtedly  that  of  Plato  in  the 
"  Gorgias."  And  yet  who  is  convinced  by  that  now  ? 
Who  does  not  rise  from  the  perusal  of  that  argument 
with  the  conviction — painful  and  sad  on  his  mind — that 
if  this  is  all,  then,  indeed,  "  shadows,  clouds,  and  dark 
ness"  rest  on  the  whole  subject  ?  You  could  not  con 
vince  a  child  in  any  of  our  Sunday-schools,  from  that 
argument,  that  his  soul  is  immortal.  Hear  Cicero  again 
on  that  argument  of  Plato,  in  a  passage  which  I  have 
quoted  to  you  before :  "  I  know  not  how  it  is,  but  when 
I  read  I  assent ;  but  when  I  lay  down  the  book,  and  be 
gin  by  myself  to  reflect  on  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
all  that  assent  glides  away."* 

(c)  All  that  we  know  about  a  plan  of  salvation  is 
learned  from  the  Bible,  not  from  philosophy  or  science. 
Science  does  not  disclose  such  a  plan  —  any  plan  by 
which  a  sinner  may  be  saved.  It  is  not,  and  it  is  not 
supposed  to  be,  a  part  of  the  province  of  science  to  re 
veal  such  a  plan,  and  scientific  men,  as  such,  are  careful 
to  keep  their  own  province  distinct  from  any  such  plan, 

*  Marcus.  Quid  tibi  ergo  opera  nostra  opus  est?  num  eloquentia 
Platonem  superare  possumus?  evolve  diligenter  ejus  eum  librum,  qui 
est  de  animo ;  amplius  quod  desideres,  nih.il  erit.  Auditor.  Feri  me- 
hercule,  et  quidem  saepius,  sed  nescio  quo  modo,  dum  lego,  assentior ; 
cum  posui  librum,  et  mecum  ipse  de  irnmortalitate  animorum  coepi  cogitare, 
assensio  oitinis  ilia  elabitur. —  Cicero,  Tusc.  Qusest.,  lib.  i,  cap.  xii. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  263 

or  the  suggestion  of  any  such  plan.  However  much,  in 
other  respects,  scientific  men  may  seem  to  encroach  on 
the  doctrines  of  the  Bible;  however  the  geologist,  to 
use  a  phrase  derived  from  the  law,  but  which  may  be 
regarded  as  quite  expressive  of  the  idea,  may  claim 
"concurrent  jurisdiction"  with  the  Bible  over  the  sub 
jects  involved  in  its  department,  yet  nothing  of  this 
kind  is  claimed  or  is  manifest  in  regard  to  a  plan  of  re 
demption  for  sinners,  or  a  way  of  saving  men.  Neither 
the  astronomer,  nor  the  anatomist,  nor  the  chemist 
claims  for  himself  any  special  knowledge  on  this  sub 
ject  above  other  men,  nor  in  the  books  published  in 
these  departments  of  science  is  there  any  suggestion 
about  the  way  in  which  a  sinner  may  be  saved.  What 
ever  may  have  been  claimed  by  "  philosophers,"  so 
called,  in  ancient  times,  in  regard  to  this ;  whatever 
Socrates  or  Plato  may  have  suggested,  yet  it  is  certain 
that  the  writers  on  mental  philosophy  of  these  times  do 
not  regard  the  matter  as  coming  within  the  cognizance 
of  their  department  of  learning,  and  that,  in  reference 
to  a  plan  of  salvation  for  sinners,  we  should  be  as  un 
successful  in  our  inquiries  in  Jthe  writings  of  Kant,  of 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  and  of  J.  Stewart  Mill,  as  we 
should  in  a  treatise  on  Logarithms  or  Fluxions.  It  has 
somehow  occurred  to  the  writers  of  the  Bible  to  state 
such  a  plan;  to  make  it  prominent;  to  weave  it  into 
the  entire  structure  of  the  book ;  to  make  it  the  grand 
thing  on  which  the  composition  of  the  book  turns ;  to 
make  it  the  idea,  in  fact,  running  through  the  entire 
collection  of  books  from  Genesis  to  Revelation,  sixty  in 
number,  and  composed  by  perhaps  a  hundred  different 
authors — an  idea  that  runs  through  the  book  as  really 
as  the  wrath  of  Achilles  runs  through  all  the  books  of 
the  Iliad,  or  the  wrath  of  Juno  through  the  ^Eniad,  or 


264  LECTURES    ON    THE 

the  fall  of  man  through  the  Paradise  Lost  —  though 
these  are  respectively  the  production  of  one  man — of 
one  mind. 

(cT)  All  that  we  know  about  a  future  state  is  from 
the  Bible.  I  do  not  say  all  that  we  conjecture  or  im 
agine,  but  all  that  we  know.  Science  does  not  pertain 
to  that  world,  nor  does  it  determine  any  thing  on  the 
question  whether  there  is -to  be  a  future  world,  or,  if 
there  is,  what  it  is  to  be.  The  crucible  and  the  blow 
pipe  impart  no  light  on  that  subject ;  the  telescope  has 
nothing  to  reveal  in  regard  to  it ;  the  geologist  is  labor 
ing  to  determine  something  in  regard  to  the  intermina 
ble  past,  but  he  has  nothing  to  reveal  in  regard  to  the 
interminable  future.  The  footprints  of  birds,  and  the 
fossil  bones,  and  the  rocks  reveal  something  in  regard 
to  the  past,  but  they  have  nothing  to  say  about  that 
which  is  to  come.  Nor  can  any  man  carry  the  deduc 
tions  of  his  science — natural  philosophy,  mental  philos 
ophy,  astronomy,  chemistry,  fluxions — a  single  step  be 
yond  the  grave.  Nor  does  any  one  come  back  from 
that  world,  if  there  is  such  a  world,  to  tell  the  scientific 
man  and  the  philosopher  that  there  is  such  a  world,  and 
what  it  is.  Apart  from  the  Bible,  we  are  in  utter  dark 
ness — a  "  land  of  darkness  and  of  the  shadow  of  death ; 
a  land  of  darkness  as  darkness  itself;  and  of  the  shad 
ow  of  death,  without  any  order,  and  where  the  light  is 
as  darkness"  (Job,  x.,  21,  22). 

(3.)  The  truths  disclosed  in  the  Bible  are  up  to  this 
age,  and  are  still  in  advance  of  the  world.  Science  has 
never  come  up  to  them;  the  progress  made  in  the 
world  in  our  own  marvelous  age  has  not  superseded 
them.  The  Bible  has  not  been  dropped  by  the  way,  as 
the  works  of  Averroes,  of  Galen,  of  Roger  Bacon  have 
been ;  nor  has  it  found  its  place  in  the  alcoves  of  the 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY. 


265 


library  where  lie  superseded  and  forgotten  books  of 
past  times.  It  lives.  It  has  a  vitality  and  an  energy 
which  it  never  had  before — in  the  nineteenth  century 
as  much  ahead  of  the  world,  in  its  own  departments,  as 
it  was  in  the  time  when  its  great  truths  were  first 
preached  on  Mars'  Hill  by  Paul.  This  remark  I  shall 
have  occasion  to  illustrate  in  the  tenth  and  concluding 
Lecture  of  this  course,  and  it  must  now,  therefore,  be 
taken  for  granted. 

(4.)  It  remains,  then,  to  ask  how  these  men  knew 
these  things;  how  they  were  able  to  propound  these 
truths,  which  are  to  live  through  all  the  changes  of  the 
world;  to  influence  permanently  and  perpetually  the 
nations  of  the  earth ;  to  survive  while  countless  gener 
ations  of  men  pass  away  ? 

Was  it  genius  that  produced  the  Bible  ?  How  came 
these  men  to  be  endowed  with  such  a  genius  ?  Why 
has  not  the  same  thing  occurred  elsewhere  among  such 
classes  of  men — peasants  and  fishermen  ?  Where  else 
have  such  classes  of  men  produced  such  a  book  ?  There 
has  been  ojie  Burns,  one  Bunyan,  one  Shakspeare — per 
haps  a  dozen  or  a  score  more  of  such  men  of  remarkable 
genius — plowmen,  glovers,  tinkers;  but  if  all  their  com 
positions  were  put  together,  would  they  make  one  book  ; 
would  there  be  one  plan ;  would  there  be  unity  of  de 
sign  ;  would  there  be  such  power  in  the  volume ;  would 
the  volume  commend  itself  so  much  to  all  classes  of 
men;  would  it  secure  so  permanent  a  hold;  would  it 
perpetuate  and  extend  itself  so  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth ;  would  it  so  meet  the  wants  of  man  as  a  sin 
ner,  as  a  sufferer,  as  a  dying  being,  as  immortal  ? 

Did  the  sacred  writers  borrow  this  from  others? 
From  whom  ?  From  the  Persian  magi ;  from  Chaldsean 
sages;  from  Egyptian  priests?  These  were  the  only 
M 


266  LECTURES    ON   THE 

ones  to  borrow  from  at  the  time  when  a  considerable 
part  of  the  book  was  written,  and  they  have  not  bor 
rowed  from  them.  They  had  nothing,  and  they  have 
transmitted  nothing  to  us  which  could  be  regarded  as 
the  original  of  which  the  Bible  is  a  copy  ;  and,  what 
ever  may  be  said  of  the  Bible,  it  is  an  original  book. 

Is  it  the  production  of  insanity  ?  Something  like  the 
ravings  of  the  Pythian  priestess  or  the  priest  of  Apollo ; 
something  like  those  great  thoughts  which  a  mind  like 
that  of  Hamlet  could  produce,  the  workings  of  "  melan 
cholic  madness  of  a  delicate  shade,  in  which  the  rea 
soning  faculties,  the  intellect  proper,  so  far  from  being 
overcome  or  disordered,  may,  on  the  other  hand,  be  ren 
dered  more  active  and  vigorous  ?"*  It  can  not  be  nec 
essary  to  argue  this.  Perhaps  an  apology  is  necessary 
for  having  alluded  to  it  again. 

Is  it  the  result  of  inspiration  ?  This  is  the  remaining 
solution.  This,  at  least,  will  account  for  the  facts.  This 
will  explain  all.  This  is  the  most  simple  and  easy  so 
lution  ;  this  is  what  they  claim  for  themselves ;  this  is 
what  has  commended  itself  as  the  best  solution  of  the 
facts  to  the  great  mass  of  mankind  for  these  eighteen 
hundred  years.  This  is  likely  to  be  extensively  the 
opinion  of  mankind  for  generations  to  come. 

That  there  are  difficulties  in  the  view  which  has  now 
been  submitted  to  you  is  not  to  be  denied.  That  there 
are  many  questions  which  may  be  asked  in  regard  to 
the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  which,  if  they  do  not  re 
main  to  be  asked,  remain  to  be  answered,  is  to  be  ad 
mitted.  That  there  are  things  in  the  Bible  apparently 
inconsistent  with  the  high  purpose  of  a  revelation  from 
God;  that  there  are  apparent  inconsistencies  and  con- 

*  Shakspeare's  Delineations  of  Insanity,  etc.,  by  A.  0.  Kellogg,  M. 
/>.,  p.  36. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  267 

tradictions  in  the  book  itself;  that  there  are  discrepan 
cies  between  its  statements  and  the  statements  of  secu 
lar  history — not  determined  yet  which  is  right ;  that 
there  are  commands  not  easy  to  be  reconciled  with  our 
notions  of  justice  and  morality;  that  there  are  state 
ments  which  seem  to  conflict  with  many  of  the  disclos 
ures  of  science,  no  friend  of  the  Bible  can  deny.  That 
to  solve  these  questions,  and  remove  these  difficulties, 
would  be  the  meritorious  work  of  a  long  life,  a  field 
worthy  of  the  highest  talent  of  any  young  man  desir 
ous  of  rendering  the  most  efficient  service  possible  to 
the  Church  of  God,  I  most  firmly  believe.  That  there 
is  no  work  on  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  that  meets 
all  these  questions,  and  removes  all  these  difficulties,  so 
that  it  would  commend  itself  to  a  candid  inquirer  after 
truth  as  entirely  satisfactory,  be  he  infidel  or  otherwise, 
I  think  any  one  must  admit  who  has  had  occasion  to 
examine  what  has  been  written  on  the  subject. 

But  these  admitted  facts  do  not  affect  the  reasoning 
in  this  Lecture,  if  the  reasoning  has  any  value.  The 
difficulties  of  science  yet  unexplained,  and  that  seem, 
as  many  of  them  do,  to  lie  beyond  the  compass  of  the 
human  mind,  do  not  affect  the  general  course  of  argu 
ment  in  regard  to  astronomy,  chemistry,  geology,  anat 
omy.  The  apparent  inconsistencies  and  contradictions 
in  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  are  not  al 
lowed  to  set  aside  the  deductions  which  seem  to  be 
clearly  established.  Time  does  wonders  in  all  sciences. 
One  after  another  difficulties  are  removed ;  a  thing  that 
seemed  to  jar  is  shown  to  be,  in  fact,  in  harmony ;  what 
seemed  to  be  irreconcilable  with  something  else  is 
shown  to  be,  in  fact,  essential  to  the  very  existence,  and 
to  the  proper  action  of  that  "  something  else."  How 
many  difficulties,  contradictions,  discrepancies,  thus  si- 


268  LECTURES    ON   THE 

lently  vanish  as  light  advances  in  the  world,  and  as  the 
real  harmonies  of  the  universe  are  better  understood ! 
Thousands  of  hearts,  and  heads,  and  hands  are  thus 
successfully  toiling  in  removing  the  difficulties  in  na 
ture  ;  intellects  not  less  profound,  learning  not  less  ex 
tensive,  hands  not  less  active,  are  toiling  in  like  manner, 
and  with  as  much  prospect  of  success,  in  removing  the 
questions  of  difficulty  in  regard  to  the  Bible. 

It  is  said  that  much  of  the  Bible  relates  to  common 
matters ;  to  trifles ;  to  things  that  men  could  learn 
without  a  revelation ;  to  things  that  are  of  no  great 
consequence ;  to  things  low  and  insignificant. 

Much  of  this  is  so ;  and  the  same  is  as  true  of  the 
world  as  God  made  it  as  it  is  of  the  Bible  that  He  has 
revealed.  Atoms ;  molecules ;  germs ;  infusoria ;  worms ; 
reptiles;  insects  made  to  torment  and  annoy;  centi 
pedes  ;  tarantulas  ;  vermin  —  why  all  these  things  ? 
Would  the  God  that  revealed  the  great  truths  of  hu 
man  redemption  "  reveal,"  if  revelation  it  can  be  called, 
so  many  trivial  things  in  the  Bible  ?  Would  the  God 
that  made  the  sun,  the  stars,  the  milky  way,  the  mil 
lions — the  numberless  millions  of  suns  that  flame  in  the 
far  distant  realms  of  spTace,  make  and  care  for  these 
things  so  trivial ;  so  annoying ;  so  noxious  ? 

It  is  said  that  there  are  discrepancies;  inconsisten 
cies  ;  contradictions. 

It  is  so,  apparently.  Are  there  none  in  nature  that 
science  has  not  yet  taught  us  how  to  reconcile  and  har 
monize?  There  was  a  discrepancy  in  the  movements 
of  the  planet  Uranus,  lying,  as  was  supposed,  on  the 
outer  circle  of  the  planetary  worlds.  It  did  not  work 
well.  It  did  not  keep  its  course.  It  bent  out  of  its 
way.  It  was  not  in  harmony  with  the  rest ;  nor  could 
astronomers  tell  why.  Le  Verrier  and  Adams  simulta- 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY. 


269 


neously  gave  their  minds  to  the  solution  of  the  diffi 
culty,  and  each  suggested  that  there  was  another  plan 
et,  as  yet  unseen  by  man,  far  in  the  region  beyond  it. 
The  astronomer  at  Berlin  pointed  his  telescope  to  the 
spot  where  they  said  it  would  be  found,  and  the  har 
mony  of  the  planetary  system  was  restored. 

Who  knows  what  time  may  do  in  removing  apparent 
inconsistencies  and  contradictions  ?  Listen  to  a  remark 
of  Mr.  Hume :  "  No  priestly  dogmas  ever  shocked  com 
mon  sense  more  than  the  infinite  divisibility  of  exten 
sion,  with  its  consequences."* 

It  is  said  that  there  are  things  taught,  commanded, 
and  done  in  the  Bible,  as  the  command  to  Abraham  to 
offer  up  his  son  Isaac,  and  the  command  to  destroy  the 
nations  of  Canaan,  which  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  with 
our  notions  of  morality. 

This,  also,  is  so ;  and  the  same  thing  is  true  of  much 
that  God  does  in  our  world,  and  of  much  that  he  per 
mits.  Who  has  explained  these  things  ?  Who  has  been 
able  to  show  exactly  how  the  things  that  occur  on 
earth  under  the  divine  administration  —  by  the  order- 
ings  of  His  providence,  and  by  His  own  hand,  are  con 
sistent  with  our  notions  of  justice  and  right ;  our  views 
of  morality ;  our  conceptions  of  benevolence  ?  ,  When 
there  are  any  fewer  difficulties  in  the  facts  in  our  world 
than  there  are  in  this  respect  in  the  statements  of  the 
Bible,  then  it  will  be  proper,  on  this  account,  to  make  it 
a  special  objection  to  the  Bible  as  a  work  of  God ;  when 
men  have  succeeded  in  explaining  the  difficulties  in  the 
facts  as  they  occur  under  the  divine  administration,  and 
in  showing  how  they  are  consistent  with  our  notions  of 
justice,  goodness,  and  morality,  then  it  will  remain  to 
inquire  whether  possibly  the  same  explanation  might 
*  Philosophical  Works,  vol.  iv.,  p.  182. 


270  LECTURES    ON   THE 

not  remove  all  the  difficulties  from  the  same  source 
pertaining  to  the  word  of  God.  The  entrance  of  sin ; 
the  sorrows  and  woes  of  earth ;  the  inequalities  in  the 
human  condition ;  the  destruction  of  the  innocent — of 
women,  and  old  men,  and  infants  by  the  plague,  by  pes 
tilence,  and  by  famine ;  the  desolations  of  war,  not  less 
savage  and  barbarous  than  the  wars  of  Canaan ;  the 
divine  vengeance  taken  on  nations  through  the  agency 
of  the  wicked  passions  of  men — the  love  of  conquest, 
revenge,  and  ambition — O  for  the  coming  of  some  one, 
gifted  above  all  mortals  hitherto,  that  shall  be  able  to 
explain  these  things,  and  to  tell  how  they  are  consistent 
with  the  character  of  a  just  and  holy  God ;  with  our 
conception  of  what  is  right,  and  of  what  would  be  for 
the  best ;  with  our  notions  of  benevolence,  equity,  right 
eousness — O  for  some  gifted  mind  to  tell  how  sin,  and 
woe,  and  death  came  into  the  universe  at  all !  Till 
such  an  appearing,  what  better  can  we  do  than  to  sup 
pose,  in  either  case,  that  there  may  be  principles  at  pres 
ent  beyond  our  grasp  that  may  explain  the  one  and  the 
other ;  that  the  principles  which  would  be  applicable  to 
the  one  may  be  applicable  to  the  other ;  that  the  God 
of  nature  may  be  the  God  of  the  Bible. 

These  things  constitute  no  great  difficulty  in  the 
practical  affairs  of  life ;  they  need  constitute  no  great 
difficulty  in  the  practical  matters  of  religion.  They  do 
not  prove,  in  the  one  case,  that  the  world  is  not  the 
workmanship  of  a  pure  and  holy  God;  they  do  not 
prove,  in  the  other,  that  the  Bible  is  not  from  the  same 
pure  and  holy  Being. 

Have  we  reached  a  conclusion  on  this  subject  which 
will  be  satisfactory  to  your  minds  ?  Perhaps  I  ought 
not  to  venture  to  affirm  what  I  would  hope  may  be 
true.  Have  we  removed  all  difficulties  from  the  sub- 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  271 

ject  ?  Assuredly  this  has  not  been  done ;  nor,  in  a  world 
so  full  of  difficulties  on  kindred  subjects,  could  we  hope 
that  this  could  be  done.  But,  notwithstanding  these 
things,  it  may  have  been  shown  that  the  Bible  is  a  book 
whose  origin  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  by  a  reference 
to  human  genius ;  and  that  the  most  simple  and  philo 
sophical  explanation  of  the  facts  in  regard  to  it  is,  that 
it  is  given  by  INSPIRATION  OF  GOD — as  the  most  satis 
factory  explanation  of  our  world,  after  all,  with  all  its 
difficulties,  is,  that  it  is  THE  CREATION  OF  GOD, 


272  LECTURES    ON   THE 


LECTURE  VTII. 

THE  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  DIVINE  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY 
FROM  THE  PERSONAL  CHARACTER  AND  THE  INCARNA 
TION  OF  CHRIST. 

THE  question  which,  in  history,  has  agitated  the 
world  more  perhaps  than  any  other,  is  .that  which  was 
asked  by  Pilate,  "  What  shall  I  do  with  Jesus  which  is 
called  Christ  ?"  (Matt.,  xxvii.,  22).  In  history  the  ques 
tion  has  been,  What  view  shall  be  taken  of  his  person? 
What  origin  and  rank  shall  be  ascribed  to  him  ?  What 
place  shall  he  have  among  those  whose  life  and  teach 
ings  have  materially  affected  the  condition  of  the 
world?  Shall  he  be  regarded  as  a  mere  man,  "natu 
rally  as  fallible  and  peccable  as  other  men  ?"  Shall  he 
be  regarded  as  a  mere  man,  but,  unlike  other  men  in 
this  respect,  that  he  was  absolutely  perfect  and  pure  ? 
Shall  he  be  regarded  as  a  phantasm,  appearing  in  the 
form  of  humanity,  and  living,  suffering,  dying  in  ap 
pearance  only  ?  Shall  he  be  regarded  as  a  being  of  a 
higher  order  actually  descending  to  the  earth,  and  liv 
ing  among  men — an  angel ;  an  archangel ;  a  loftier  being 
still,  as  near  to  God  as  a  created  being  can  be,  sent  into 
the  world  to  accomplish  a  great  work  for  men  ?  Shall 
he  be  regarded  as  the  most  highly  endowed  in  genius 
of  any  of  our  own  race ;  forming  some  great  plan ;  and 
accomplishing  his  work  by  the  mere  greatness  of  his 
genius  ?  Shall  we  regard  him  as  a  mythical  being,  and 
all  that  has  been  said  of  him  as  embodying  only  the 
conceptions  of  men  forming  a  system  of  imposture  or 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHEISTIANITY.  273 

delusion  around  him  as  a  nucleus,  and  arranging  the 
ideas  of  that  system  as  if  they  had  been  expressed  in 
his  life  ?  Shall  we  regard  him  as  God  himself  in  his 
own  essence  incarnate ;  or  as  a  person  in  the  essence  of 
God  incarnate ;  or  as  a  form  of  the  mere  manifestation 
of  the  Deity  in  our  world  ?  Shall  we  regard  him  as 
having  one  nature  or  two ;  one  will  or  two ;  as  a  per 
fect  man  having  a  "  reasonable  soul"  as  well  as  a  body, 
united  with  the  divinity ;  or  shall  we  regard  him  as  a 
man  only  as  he  had  a  bodily  form  in  which  God,  as  such, 
performed  all  the  functions  of  the  soul  ?  Has  the  world 
come  to  any  settled  views  on  these  subjects,  or  is  it 
likely  that  it  ever  will  ?  Enemies  and  friends ;  sages, 
fathers,  priests;  synods  and  councils  embracing  the 
learning  and  piety  of  the  world;  good  men  and  bad 
men;  historians  and  philosophers;  the  orthodox  and 
the  heretical,  have  endeavored  for  eighteen  hundred 
years  to  answer  the  question  which  so  much  perplexed 
Pilate, "  What  shall  be  done  with  Jesus  ?"  Men  of  pro 
found  erudition,  assuming  that  there  was  a  real  person 
age  who  bore  the  name,  have  brought,  as  Strauss  has 
done,  the  vast  resources  of  their  learning  to  the  inquiry 
whether  all  else  in  regard  to  him  could  not  be  explained 
on  the  supposition  that  his  religion  is  a  "  myth ;"  men 
of  brilliant  imaginations,  entering  the  field  of  romance, 
like  Renan,  have  inquired  whether  all  that  occurred  in 
his  life  can  not  be  explained  on  the  supposition  that  he 
was  a  young  man  of  marvelous  genius,  awaking  grad 
ually  to  the  consciousness  of  his  own  great  powers,  and 
himself  deluded  with  the  idea  of  a  universal  empire. 
The  "  orthodox"  world  has  believed  that  his  true  place 
in  history  can  be  assigned  only  on  the  supposition  that 
he  was  the  only  perfect  man  that  has  ever  trod  the 

M2 


274  LECTUEES    ON   THE 

earth  since  the  first  Adam  fell,  and  that  he  was  the  in 
carnate  Son  of  God. 

Pilate  was  perplexed.  An  honest  man  would  have 
settled  the  question  at  once.  The  world  has  been  per 
plexed.  Can  we  now,  after  the  lapse  of  eighteen  hund 
red  years,  so  determine  what  is  to  be  "  done"  with  him 
as  to  find  evidence  in  his  character  and  claims  that  he 
was  sent  from  God,  and  that  his  religion  is  true  ? 

The  subject  of  this  Lecture,  therefore,  will  be,  The 
evidence  of  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity  from  the 
personal  character  and  the  incarnation  of  Christ. 

As  preparing  the  way  for  this  argument,  it  may  be 
proper  to  refer  a  little  more  fully  to  the  nature  of  the 
perplexities  which  have  been  felt  on  the  subject,  and  to 
the  various  answers  which  have  been  given  to  the  in 
quiry  involved  in  the  question  of  Pilate. 

The  Gnostics  regarded  him  as  an  aeon  or  "  emanation" 
from  God,  "  the  first  and  brightest  emanation  of  the 
Deity,  who  appeared  upon  earth  to  rescue  mankind 
from  various  errors,  and  to  reveal  a  new  system  of  truth 
and  perfection."*  He  was,  in  their  apprehension,  neither 
truly  God  nor  truly  man.  "  Not  truly  God,  because 
they  held  him,  though  begotten  of  God,  to  be  yet  much 
inferior  to  the  Father;  nor  truly  man,  because  every 
thing  concrete  and  corporeal  they  believed  to  be  in 
trinsically  and  essentially  evil ;  so  that  most  of  them 
divested  Christ  of  a  material  body,  and  denied  him  to 
have  suffered  for  our  sakes  what  he  is  recorded  to  have 
endured."  He  was  a  phantasm  that  appeared  first  on 
the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  and  lived,  and  suffered,  and 
died  in  appearance  only.f 

According  to  Arius,  he  is  "totally  and  essentially 

*  Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall,  i.,  256. 

t  Mosheim,  Eccl.  Hist.,  vol.  i.,  p.  Ill,  171-181. 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  275 

distinct  from  the  Father ;  the  first  and  noblest  of  those 
created  beings  whom  God  the  Father  formed  out  of 
nothing,  and  the  instrument  which  the  Father  used  in 
creating  the  universe,  and,  therefore,  inferior  to  the 
Father  both  in  nature  and  in  dignity."*  "  Though  the 
Son  of  God  was  united  with  human  nature  on  the  birth 
of  Jesus,  yet  that  Son  of  God  was  a  m'<r/ja  [creation]. 
He  indeed  existed  long  before  that  birth,  but  not  from 
eternity."f 

To  the  Monarchians,  or  Patripassians,  he  was  the  true 
God  inhabiting  the  body  of  Jesus,  the  divine  nature  oc 
cupying  the  place  and  performing  the  functions  of  the 
human  soul — "  the  man  Christ  was  the  Son  of  God,  and 
to  this  Son  the  Father  of  the  universe  so  joined  him 
self  as  to  be  crucified  and  endure  pangs  along  with  the 
Son."J  They  asserted  "  the  true  and  proper  Deity  in 
Christ's  person,  but  denied  his  humanity.  The  one 
single  person  of  the  Godhead,  the  true  and  absolute 
Deity,  united  himself  with  a  human  body,  but  not  with 
a  rational  human  soul."§ 

Nestorius  and  his  followers  sought  to  answer  the 
question  by  assuming  the  fact  that  there  were  in  Christ 
two  natures,  a  proper  divinity  and  a  proper  humanity, 
but  that  they  remained  distinct  and  were  not  united  in 
one  person  —  "in  a  single  self-conscious  personality." 
"  Instead  of  a  blending  of  the  two  natures  into  only  one 
self,  the  Nestorian  scheme  places  two  selves  side  by 
side,  and  allows  only  a  moral  and  sympathetic  union 
between  them.  The  result  is,  that  the  acts  of  each 
nature  derive  no  character  from  the  qualities  of  the 

*  Mosheim,  Eccl.  Hist.,  vol.  i.,  p.  343. 

t  Shedd's  Christian  Doctrine,  vol.  i.,  p.  393. 

I  Mosheim,  Eccl.  Hist.,  vol.  i.,  p.  182. 

§  Shedd's  Christian  Doctrine,  vol.  i.,  p.  394. 


276  LECTURES    ON   THE 

other."*  The  problem  to  be  solved  was  whether  all 
the  statements  in  the  New  Testament,  and  all  the  acts 
of  the  Redeemer,  could  be  explained  on  this  supposi 
tion. 

The  Eutychian  or  the  Monophysite  Christology  ex 
plained,  or  tried  to  explain,  the  statements  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  the  facts  in  the  life  of  the  Redeemer,  on 
another  and  an  opposite  supposition,  in  answer  to  the 
question  "  what  shall  be  done  with  Jesus."  That  sys 
tem  asserts  the  unity  of  self-consciousness  in  the  person 
of  Christ,  but  loses  the  duality  of  the  two  natures.  Eu- 
tyches  taught  that  in  the  incarnation  the  human  nature 
was  transmuted  into  the  divine,  so  that  the  resultant 
was  one  person  and  one  nature.  For  this  reason  the 
Eutychians  held  that  it  was  accurate  and  proper  to  say 
that"  God  suffered.^ 

Sabellius  sought  to  answer  the  question  by  supposing 
that  there  was  but  one  "  person"  in  the  divine  nature ; 
that,  according  to  the  different  manifestations,  as  Cre 
ator,  Redeemer,  Sanctifier,  that  one  person  was  desig 
nated  by  different  names,  implying  a  distinction  not  in 
nature,  but  in  the  manifestation  that  there  was  a  "  cer 
tain  energy  put  forth  by  the  supreme  parent,  or  a  cer 
tain  portion  of  the  divine  nature  being  separated  from 
it,  because  united  with  the  Son,  or  the  man  Christ ;  that 
there  was  but  one  divine  person ;  that  while  there  was 
a  real  difference  between  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost,  that  difference  was  neither  an  essential  nor  a 
personal  one ;  the  divine  three  were  not  three  distinct 
persons,  but  three  portions  of  the  divine  nature,  all  de 
pending  on  God;  and  that  that  portion  which  united 
with  the  man  Christ,  in  order  to  redeem  men,  is  the 

*  ShedcPs  Christian  Doctrine,  vol.  i.,  p.  397. 
t  Hid.,  vol.  i.,  p.  397. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHEISTIANITY.  277 

Son,"  and  that  by  this  theory  all  that  there  was  in  the 
person  and  work  of  Christ  can  be  explained.* 

Paul  of  Samosata  and  his  followers — the  Paulians — 
supposed  that  they  could  explain  the  mysteries  of  the 
person  of  Christ  on  the  theory  that  the  Son  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  exist  in  God  as  reason  and  the  operative 
power  do  in  man;  that  Christ *was  born  a  mere  man, 
but  that  the  reason  or  wisdom  of  the  Father  descended 
into  him,  and  enabled  him  to  teach  and  to  work  mira 
cles  ;  and  that,  on  this  account,  it  was  proper  to  say 
that  Christ  was  God,  though  not  in  the  proper  sense  of 
the  word.f 

Julian,  the  emperor,  greatly  perplexed  and  embar 
rassed  in  regard  to  Jesus,  and  the  progress  which  his 
religion  had  made  in  the  empire,  attempted  to  solve  all 
the  mysteries  in  regard  to  him  by  saying  that "  Jesus, 
having  persuaded  a  few  among  you  [Galilseans,  as  he 
contemptuously  called  the  Christians],  and  those  of  the 
worst  of  men,  has  now  been  celebrated  about  three 
hundred  years,  having  done  nothing  in  his  lifetime 
worthy  of  fame — tpvov  ovfav  aicorjQ  d£tov — unless  any  one 
thinks  it  a  very  great  work  to  heal  lame  and  blind  peo 
ple,  and  exorcise  demoniacs  in  the  villages  of  Bethsaida 
and  Bethany.  "J 

Socinus  sought  an  explanation  by  assuming  that 
Christ  was  a  mere  man,  but  a  good  man ;  Dr.  Priestley 

*  See  Mosheim,  Eccl.  Hist.,  vol.  i.,  p.  241,  2.  There  is  some  confu 
sion  in  the  statement  of  Mosheim  on  this  subject,  and  there  has  been 
some  doubt  whether  he  has  given  the  correct  account  of  the  senti 
ments  of  Sabellius.  His  views  are  examined  in  a  long  note  by  Dr. 
Murdock.  I  have  endeavored,  from  the  text  and  the  note,  to  state,  as 
clearly  as  possible,  what  were  probably  the  views  of  Sabellius. 

t  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  244. 

J  Lardner's  Works,  vol.  vii.,  p.  628,  ed.  London,  1838. 


278  LECTURES    ON   THE 

in  the  idea  that  he  was  a  mere  man  "  naturally  as  falli 
ble  and  peccable  as  any  other  man." 

Chubb  supposed  that  he  could  explain  all  by  the  fol 
lowing  statement :  "  In  Christ  we  have  an  example  of 
a  quiet  and  peaceable  spirit ;  of  a  becoming  modesty 
and  sobriety  ;  just,  honest,  upright,  sincere ;  and,  above 
all,  of  a  most  gracious  and  benevolent  temper  and  be 
havior.  One  who  did  no  wrong,  no  injury  to  any  man; 
in  whose  mouth  was  no  guile ;  who  went  about  doing 
good,  not  only  by  his  ministry,  but  also  in  curing  all 
manner  of  diseases  among  the  people.  His  life  was  a 
beautiful  picture  of  human  nature  in  its  native  purity 
and  simplicity,  and  showed  at  once  what  excellent  crea 
tures  men  would  be  when  under  the  influence  and 
power  of  the  Gospel  which  he  preached  unto  them."* 

The  solution  by  Rousseau  is  so  well  known  that  it  is 
necessary  only  to  refer  to  it.  "  Is  it  possible,"  says  he, 
"  that  the  sacred  personage  whose  history  it  [the  Bible] 
contains  should  be  himself  a  mere  man  ?  What  sweet 
ness,  what  purity  in  his  manner !  What  an  affecting 
gracefulness  in  his  instructions  !  What  sublimity  in  his 
maxims !  What  profound  wisdom  in  his  discourses ! 
What  presence  of  mind,  what  subtlety,  what  fitness  in 
his  replies !  How  great  the  command  over  his  pas 
sions  !  Where  is  the  man,  where  the  philosopher,  who 
could  so  live  and  so  die,  without  weakness  and  without 
ostentation  ?  The  death  of  Socrates,  peacefully  philoso 
phizing  among  his  friends,  appears  the  most  agreeable 
that  one  could  wish ;  that  of  Jesus,  expiring  in  agonies, 
abused,  insulted,  and  accused  by  a  whole  nation,  is  the 
most  horrible  that  one  could  fear.  Socrates,  indeed,  in 
receiving  the  cup  of  poison,  blessed  the  weeping  execu- 

*  True  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  sec.  viii.,  p.  55,  56,  quoted  by  Dr. 
Scliaff,  Person  of  Christ,  p.  282,  283. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  279 

tioner  who  administered  it ;  but  Jesus,  amidst  excruci 
ating  tortures,  prayed  for  his  merciless  tormentors. 
Yes,  if  the  life  and  death  of  Socrates  were  those  of  a 
sage,  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  are  those  of  a  God."* 

Strauss  assumed  that  Jesus  was  a  real  personage — 
that  there  was  such  a  living  Teacher,  but 'that  the 
things  ascribed  to  him  are  in  the  main  niy  thical ;  that 
is,  that  certain  ideas  and  conceptions  have  been  made 
to  have  the  appearance  of  a  living  form  and  reality  by 
being  represented  as  in  connection  with  him,  or  as  acted 
out  in  his  life.  The  problem  was,  assuming  that  there 
was  such  a  real  personage,  to  explain  how  those  ideas 
could  be  represented  as  embodied  in  his  life,  or  what 
those  ideas  would  be  if  represented  as  acted  out  by  a 
living  man.  "  This  Christ,"  says  he,  "  as  far  as  he  is  in 
separable  from  the  highest  style  of  religion,  is  historic 
al^  not  mythical;  is  an  individual,  not  a  mere  symbol. 
To  the  historical  person  of  Christ  belongs  all  in  his  life 
that  exhibits  his  religious  perfection,  his  discourses,  his 
moral  action,  and  his  passion.  He  remains  the  highest 
model  of  religion  within  the  reach  of  our  thought,  and 
no  perfect  piety  is  possible  without  his  presence  in  the 
heart.  As  little  as  humanity  will  ever  be  without  re 
ligion,  as  little  will  it  be  without  Christ ;  for  to  have 
religion  without  Christ  would  be  as  absurd  as  to  enjoy 
poetry  without  regard  to  Homer  or  Shakspeare."f 

Renan  takes  a  different  view,  and  aims  to  explain  his 
life  on  different  principles.  c  I  will  assume,'  is  the  idea 
— not  his  exact  language — '  the  main  facts  about  him, 
as  stated  by  the  Evangelists,  especially  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  to  be  true,  and  I  will  write  his  life  anew — that 

*  Emile  ou  de  1'Education,  lect.  iv.,  quoted  at  length  in  Dr. 
Schaff's  Person  of  Christ,  p.  286-296. 

f  Quoted  by  Dr.  Schaff,  Person  of  Christ,  p.  340,  341. 


280  LECTURES    ON   THE 

life  as  seen  especially  by  a  contemplation  of  the  scenes 
where  he  lived  and  died.  I  will  make  that  life  as  at 
tractive  as  possible  by  all  the  charms  of  fancy,  romance, 
poetry.  I  will  go  and  visit  the  place  where  he  was 
born,  the  place  where  he  was  trained,  the  places  where 
he  dwelt,  and  there,  studying  his  characte-r,  inquiring 
how  it  was  developed  at  that  time  and  in  those  scenes 
— the  influences  that  bore  on  his  childhood,  his  youth, 
and  his  riper  years — the  successive  ideas  which  he  cher 
ished  in  regard  to  his  own  powers,  and  the  unconscious 
illusions  under  which  he  was  brought  in  regard  to  him 
self,  and  the  plans  which  he  formed  under  those  illu 
sions,  I  will  set  forth  his  life  as  the  most  beautiful  and 
attractive  that  the  world  has  seen.  I  will  see  what  I 
can  do  with  this  '  young  man  of  profound  originality' 
(p.  125) ;  of '  perfect  idealism'  (p.  140) ;  '  who  developed 
his  own  powers  the  more  he  believed  on  himself  (p. 
148);  this  young  man  of  extraordinary  genius,  awak 
ing  slowly  to  the  consciousness  of  his  great  powers ; 
forming  his  plans,  under  an  innocent  enthusiasm,  on 
'false  views,'  as  Columbus  and  Newton  did  (p.  138), 
but  deeply  and  permanently  affecting  the  world.'  "Li 
the  first  rank,"  says  he,  "  of  the  grand  family  of  the 
true  sons  of  God,  we  must  place  Jesus.  Jesus  had  no 
visions ;  God  does  not  speak  to  him  from  without ;  God 
is  in  him ;  he  feels  that  he  is  with  God,  and  he  draws 
from  his  heart  what  he  says  of  his  Father.  He  lives  in 
the  bosom  of  God  by  uninterrupted  communication ;  he 
does  not  see  him,  but  he  understands  him  without  need 
of  thunder  and  the  burning  bush  like  Moses,  of  a  reveal 
ing  tempest  like  Job,  of  an  oracle  like  the  old  Greek 
sages,  of  a  familiar  genius  like  Socrates,  or  of  an  angel 
Gabriel  like  Mohammed.  He  believes  that  he  is  in  di 
rect  communication  with  God ;  he  believes  himself  the 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHEISTIANITY.  281 

Son  of  God.  The  highest  consciousness  of  God  which 
ever  existed  in  the  breast  of  humanity  was  that  of 
Jesus."  "  Christ,  for  the  first  time,  gave  utterance  to 
the  idea  upon  which  shall  rest  the  edifice  of  the  ever 
lasting  religion.  He  founded  the  pure  worship — of  no 
age — of  no  clime — which  shall  be  that  of  all  lofty  souls 
to  the  end  of  time.  If  other  planets  have  inhabitants 
endowed  with  reason  and  morality,  their  religion  can 
not  be  different  from  that  which  Jesus  proclaimed  at 
Jacob's  well.  The  words  of  Jesus  were  a  gleam  in  a 
thick  night;  it  has  taken  eighteen  hundred  years  for 
the  eyes  of  humanity  to  learn  to  abide  by  it.  But  the 
gleam  shall  become  the  full  day ;  and  after  the  passing 
through  all  the  circles  of  error,  humanity  will  return  to 
these  words,  as  to  the  immortal  expression  of  its  faith 
and  its  hopes."  "Repose  now  in  thy  glory,  noble 
founder !  Thy  work  is  finished ;  thy  divinity  is  estab 
lished.  Fear  no  more  to  see  the  edifice  of  thy  labors 
fall  by  any  fault.  Henceforth,  beyond  the  range  of 
frailty,  thou  shalt  witness,  from  the  heights  of  divine 
peace,  the  infinite  results  of  thy  acts.  For  thousands 
of  years  the  world  will  defend  thee.  Banner  of  our 
contests,  thou  shalt  be  the  standard  about  which  the 
hottest  battle  will  be  given.  A  thousand  times  more 
alive,  a  thousand  times  more  beloved  since  thy  death 
than  during  thy  passage  here  below,  thou  shalt  become 
the  corner-stone  of  humanity  so  entirely,  that  to  tear 
thy  name  from  this  would  be  to  rend  it  from  its  founda 
tions.  Complete  conqueror  of  death,  take  possession 
of  thy  kingdom,  whither  shall  follow  thee,  by  the 
royal  road  which  thou  hast  traced,  ages  of  worshipers." 
"  Whatever  may  be  the  surprises  of  the  future,  Jesus 
will  never  be  surpassed.  His  worship  will  grow  young 
without  ceasing ;  his  legend  will  call  forth  tears  without 


282  LECTURES    ON   THE 

end ;  his  sufferings  will  melt  the  noblest  hearts ;  all 
ages  will  proclaim  that,  among  the  sons  of  men,  there 
is  none  born  greater  than  Jesus."* 

Nothing  has  been,  also,  more  perplexing  in  secular 
history  than  the  question  what  place  shall  be  assigned 
to  Jesus  and  his  religion.  Mr.  Gibbon,  as  I  have  re 
marked  in  a  former  Lecture,  found  it  indispensable  to 
dispose  of  this  question,  and  he  gave  the  best  efforts  of 
his  mind  to  it.  The  problem  with  him  was  how  to  ac 
count  for  the  spread  and  the  power  of  his  religion  on 
the  supposition  that  it  was  an  imposture  and  an  illu 
sion.  The  course  of  his  history  would  have  flowed 
much  more  freely,  and  the  task  of  the  great  historian 
would  have  been  greatly  lightened,  if  it  had  not  been 
for  the  difficulties  involved  in  the  solution  of  this 
question. 

To  the  world  now — to  Rationalists ;  to  Socinians ;  to 
Unitarians ;  to  skeptics ;  to  worldly  men ;  to  the  West 
minster  Review ;  to  philosophers,  is  there  any  one  sub 
ject  more  difficult  than  that  involved  in  the  question 
of  Pilate,  "  What  shall  be  done  with  Jesus  ?"  Ages 
have  passed  away  since  he  lived,  and  now  the  question 
is  revived  with  a  power  which  it  has  never  had  before, 
and  more  learning  is  employed  on  the  question  than 
there  has  been,  at  any  former  period  of  the  world.  At 
his  birth  it  was  said  of  him,  "  Behold,  this  child  is  set 
for  the  fall  and  rising  again  of  many  in  Israel ;  and  for 
a  sign  which  shall  be  spoken  against ;  that  the  thoughts 
of  many  hearts  may  be  revealed"  (Luke,  ii.,  34, 35).  This 
was  true  in  his  own  age ;  it  is  true  in  history ;  it  is  true 
in  our  own  times ;  it  bids  fair  to  be  true  to  the  end  of 
the  world. 

The  inquiry  as  it  pertains  to  us  in  this  course  of  Lec- 

*  Life  of  Jesus.    New  York,  1864,  p.  50,  51,  104,  215,  351,  376. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  283 

tures,  with  reference  to  the  argument  for  the  truth  of 
his  religion,  especially  in  the  nineteenth  century — after 
his  character  has  been  before  the  world  for  eighteen 
hundred  years — is,  whether  that  character  furnishes  ev 
idence  that  he  was  from  God,  and  that  his  religion  is 
divine,  or  whether  all  that  there  was  in  his  character 
can  be  explained  on  the  supposition  that  his  claims 
were  false,  and  that  his  religion  is  an  imposture. 

The  argument  now  divides  itself  into  two  parts : 
that -derived  from  his  personal  character,  and  that  de 
rived  from  his  incarnation. 

I.    THAT  DERIVED  FROM  HIS  PERSONAL  CHARACTER. 

(1.)  The  foundation  of  this  argument  is,  that  the 
character  of  Jesus,  as  drawn  by  the  Evangelists,  is  PER 
FECT.  If  that  were  denied,  and  as  far  as  it  was  denied, 
the  argument  would  fail. 

It  might,  at  this  stage  of  the  argument,  almost  be 
assumed  that  that  character  is  perfect.  It  has  been 
admitted  by  all,  or  so  nearly  by  all,  that  as  in  cer 
tain  mathematical  propositions  small  fractions  may  be 
left  out  of  the  account  as  not  affecting  the  result,  so 
here  the  number  of  those  who  have  called  the  perfec 
tion  of  that  character  in  question  has  been  so  small, 
and  the  points  have  been  so  unimportant,  if  not  inap 
preciable  or  doubtful,  that  these  need  not  be  taken  into 
the  account.  The  ancients  did  not  call  the  perfection 
of  his  character  in  question.  Neither  Celsus,  Porphyry, 
nor  Julian  expressed  a  doubt  on  the  subject.  The  ar 
gument  which  they  urged  was  not  based  on  a  denial 
of  the  perfection  of  Jesus ;  it  was  founded  on  the  al 
leged  fact  that  the  character  of  others — of  Socrates, 
and  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana — were  not  less  perfect. 

It  is  only  in  modern  times  that  the  perfection  of  that 


284  LECTURES    ON   THE 

character  has  been  called  in  question,  and  the  fact  that 
it  has  been  done,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  has  been 
done,  have  shocked  the  Christian  world. 

Dr.  Priestley,  indeed,  asserted  that  "  Christ  was  nat 
urally  as  fallible  and  peccable  as  any  other  man,"  but 
he  did  not  venture  to  suggest  that  his  character,  in  fact, 
was  not  actually  perfect,  or  that  he  was  in  any  sense  a 
sinner,  though  he  would  not  have  been  restrained  from 
doing  it  if  there  had  been  any  thing  in  his  conduct  or 
character  to  which  he  could  have  referred  as  proof—for 
he  was  not  restrained  from  saying  that  he  had  found 
defects  in  the  reasoning  of  the  apostle  Paul.  It  was  re 
served  for  others  to  take  the  additional  bold  step  of 
specifying  what  they  regard  as  defects  in  the  character 
of  the  Saviour.  ;  i  >-. 

The  "  acute  and  candid"  author  of  the  work  on  "  The 
Soul"  and  the  "  Phases  of  Faith"*  understood  very  well 
that  "  a  perfect  type  of  character  is  the  essence  of  a 
practical  religion,"  and  that,  if  the  Christian  type  was 
perfect,  it  would  be  hopeless  to  set  up  a  new  religion 
beside  it.  Accordingly,  it  became  necessary  to  show 
that  there  were  imperfections  in  the  character  of  Christ, 
and  the  imperfections  which  he  specifies  are  two  in 
number.  The  first  is  the  exhibition  of  indignation 
against  the  hypocritical  and  soul-murdering  tyranny  of 
the  Pharisees ;  the  second  is  the  absence  of  mirth,  and 
of  laughter  as  its  natural  and  genial  manifestation.''! 
This  is  all. 

Strauss  also  denies  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus.  This, 
however,  is  done  not  so  much  from  the  specification  of 
any  actual  facts,  as  on  the  d  priori  philosophical  argu 
ment  of  the  impossibility  of  sinlessness,  or  the  panthe- 

*  Mr.  Newman. 

t  Lectures  on  the  Study  of  History,  by  Goldwin  Smith,  p.  139,  140. 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHEISTIANITY.  285 

istic  notion  of  the  inseparableness  of  sin  from  all  finite 
existence.  The  only  exegetical  proof  that  he  urges  is 
the  declaration  of  the  Savior  (Matt.,  xix.,  17),  "There 
is  none  good  but  one,  that  is  God."* 

A  French  writer — F.  Pecaut — (Le  Christ  et  la  Con 
science,  Paris,  1859)  likewise  denies  the  sinlessness  of 
Jesus.  He  refers  to  the  following  facts  as  evidences  of 
imperfection :  the  conduct  of  Jesus  toward  his  mother 
in  his  twelfth  year ;  his  rebuke  administered  to  her  at 
the  wedding  feast  of  Cana ;  his  expulsion  of  the  traffick 
ers  from  the  Temple ;  his  cursing  of  the  unfruitful  fig- 
tree  ;  the  destruction  of  the  herd  of  swine';  his  bitter 
invectives  against  the  Pharisees ;  and  his  own  rejection 
of  the  attribute  "good"  in  the  dialogue  with  the  rich 
youth,  f 

Such  objections  as  these  it  would  not  be  difficult  to 
answer,  and  it  will  be  assumed  here,  in  accordance  with 
what  may  be  regarded,  with  these  slight  exceptions,  as 
the  universal  judgment  of  mankind,  that  the  character 
of  the  Savior  was  perfect.  If  this  is  admitted,  it  will 
be  admitted,  also,  with  exceptions  not  more  numerous, 
or  that  will  not  more  vary  the  judgment  of  mankind, 
that  the  character  stands  alone.  It  would  be  as  easy 
to  dispose  of  the  few  cases  —  not  more  than  two  or 
three  in  number — that  have  been  set  up  as  being  also 
perfect,  as  Socrates  and  Apollonius,  for  example,  as  it  is 
to  dispose  of  the  specified  objections  in  regard  to  the 
perfection  of  the  Savior.  The  general  judgment  of 
mankind  on  the  subject  of  human  perfection  is  un 
doubtedly  in  accordance  with  the  expressed  opinion  of 
Cicero:  "In  whom  truly  there  shall  be  absolute  per 
fection  we  have  not  as  yet  seen ;  we  have  seen  no  one 
perfect ;  it  has  only  been  expounded  by  philosophers 
*  Schaff,  Person  of  Jesus,  p.  209.  f  Ibid. 


286  LECTURES    ON   THE 

what  such  a  one  would  be,  if  there  should  be  such  a 


55* 


one. 

(2.)  To  see  the  full  bearing  on  the  argument  of  the 
remark  now  made,  it  is  necessary  to  keep  in  mind  the 
fact  that  that  character  has  been  regarded  as  equally 
perfect  in  all  those  eighteen  centuries  which  have 
elapsed  since  his  appearing ;  among  all  nations  where 
he  has  been  made  known ;  by  all  ranks  and  conditions 
of  society.  This  is  an  ordeal  through  which  a  charac 
ter  claimed  to  be  perfect  must  necessarily  pass.  It  is 
not  that  the  character  is  regarded  as  perfect  in  one  age, 
or  among  those  of  a  certain  rank  or  condition  in  life, 
but  that  it  commends  itself  to  those  of  every  age  and 
of  every  condition,  and  that  when  examined  in  view  of 
all  the  phases  of  opinion  which  exist  among  men,  and 
of  all  the  standards  of  perfection  which  are  set  up,  in 
reference  to  what  it  would  be  if  reproduced  in  a  partic 
ular  age  and  among  a  particular  class,  it  is  still  found 
to  be  without  a  flaw.  For,  abstractly,  there  are  great 
varieties  of  opinion  among  men  about  what  is  perfect 
in  character ;  there  are  different  standards  of  morality ; 
there  are  different  views  in  philosophy;  there  are  dif 
ferent  customs  and  opinions ;  there  are  different  things 
aimed  at  in  life;  there  are  different  attempts  to  draw 
a  perfect  character.  That  which  would  seem  to  be  per 
fect  in  one  age,  and  according  to  the  mode  of  judging 
in  that  age,  might  be  seen  to  be  very  far  from  being 
perfect  when  men  should  have  more  enlarged  and  cor 
rect  views  of  what  constitutes  perfection;  and  that 
which  would  come  up  to  the  demands  of  that  more  ad 
vanced  age  might  still  show  defects  in  an  age  still  more 

*  In  quo  vero  erit  perfecta  sapientia  quern  adhuc  nos  quidem  vidi 
mus  neminem ;  sed  philosophorum  sententiis,  qualis  futurus  sit,  si 
raodo  aliquando  fucrit,  exponitur. — Tusc.  Quaest.,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  22. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  287. 

advanced,  and  might  fail  to  meet  the  general  judgment 
of  mankind  as  to  a  claim  of  absolute  sinlessness. 

The  claim  set  up  for  the  Savior,  and  universally  con 
ceded,  with  the  few  exceptions  which  I  have  noticed,  is 
that  it  commends  itself  equally  to  every  age ;  to  every 
class  of  persons ;  to  the  learned  and  the  unlearned ;  to 
sages,  to  philosophers,  and  to  those  in  humble  life — to 
all  as  absolutely  free  from  sin.  On  this  fact  my  argu 
ment  now  is  based.* 

(3.)  Assuming  now  that  the  character  of  Christ  is 
perfect  or  sinless,  it  will  be  proper,  in  order  to  see  the 
force  of  the  argument,  to  consider  the  attempts  which 
have  been  made  to.  draw  or  describe  a  perfect  char 
acter. 

One  of  two  things  is  true  in  regard  to  the  character 
of  Christ,  as  exhibited  in  the  New  Testament : — it  was 
either  real,  or  it  was  the  work  of  the  Evangelists — a 
work  of  fiction. 

If  it  was  real,  then  the  question  is  settled ;  for  if  he 
was  perfect  and  sinless,  then  he  was  what  he  claimed  to 
be,  and  was  the  Son  of  God  sent  down  from  heaven — 
for  he  undoubtedly  claimed  this. 

If  it  was  the  work  of  the  Evangelists,  then  we  have 
to  show  how  it  was  that  such  plain  men  as  they  were, 
and  very  imperfect  men  themselves,  should  have  been 
able  to  set  before  the  world  a  perfect  imaginary  charac 
ter  ;  how  four  or  more  men  of  such  rank  as  they  were 

*  The  following  works  may  be  referred  to  on  the  general  sub 
ject  of  the  character  of  the  Savior :  Dr.  Ullmann,  Die  Sundlosigkeit 
Jesu ;  Dr.  Horace,  Bushnell,  The  Character  of  Jesus ;  John  Young, 
The  Christ  of  History ;  I.  P.  Lange,  Leben  Jesu ;  Dr.  Channing's 
Sermon  on  the  Character  of  Christ,  Works,  vol.  iv.,  p.  23  ;  Lectures 
on  the  Study  of  History,  by  Prof.  Goldwin  Smith,  p.  127-167;  and 
"  The  Person  of  Christ,"  by  Dr.  Philip  Schaff. 


288  LECTUKES    ON   THE 

should  have  combined,  in  separate  narratives,  to  pro 
duce  such  a  character;  how,  moreover,  they  should 
have  done  it,  not  by  direct  statements,  but  by  placing 
this  imaginary  person  in  a  great  variety  of  situations, 
and  bringing  him  into  contact  with  the  world  for  a  suc 
cession  of  years,  and  under  every  possible  temptation 
to  do  wrong ;  and  how  they  were  able  so  to  describe 
him  that  he  never  is  represented  as  uttering  a  senti 
ment,  or  manifesting  a  feeling,  or  performing  an  action, 
which  is  not  conformable  to  the  highest  standard  of 
perfection.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  it  is  a  much 
more  difficult  thing  for  four  men  to  present  a  perfect 
character  in  such  details  than  it  would  be  for  one  man 
to  carry  out  his  own  individual  conceptions;  as  it 
would  be  more  difficult  for  four  sculptors  to  produce 
the  Apollo  Belvidere,  in  the  beauty  of  its  form  and  pro 
portions,  than  it  was  for  the  one  mind  that  conceived  it 
and  executed  it.  Moreover,  the  difficulty  is  to  be  ex 
plained  how,  on  the  supposition  even  that  Christ  actu 
ally  lived,  and  was  perfect  or  sinless,  such  men  had  the 
ability  so  to  draw  his  character,  and  so  to  represent 
him,  in  such  a  variety  of  situations,  that  his  character 
should  commend  itself  to  all  ages  as  absolutely  sinless. 

The  simple  fact  in  the  matter,  whether  the  character 
was  real,  or  whether  it  is  the  creation  of  the  imagina 
tion,  is  that  they  have  done  what  was  never  before 
done,  and  what,  even  with  this  model  -before  them,  has 
never  since  been  done. 

The  attempts  made  by  men  to  draw  a  perfect  charac 
ter  have  been  of  two  kinds :  from  real  life ;  and  from  the 
imagination  —  real  characters,  and  fictitious  characters. 

The  former  attempts  have  failed,  because  there  have 
been  no  perfect  characters,  and  because  it  has  been  the 
work  of  the  historian  to  describe  men  as  they  are. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  289 

Themselves  imperfect  men,  and  portrayed  by  imper 
fect  men,  they  stand  before  the  world  as  imperfect 
men. 

The  design  of  fiction,  in  poetry  and  romance,  is  to  de 
scribe  men  and  women  as  they  are,  or  human  nature 
as  it  is.  Such  works,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  human 
conduct,  lose  all  their  value  when  they  fail  to  describe 
human  nature  as  it  is — living  men  and  women — acting 
their  parts  on  the  great  theatre  of  human  life.  Those 
works  come  nearest  to  perfection,  as  works  of  art,  when 
they  describe  human  nature  most  accurately.  Shak- 
speare  does  not  describe  perfect  characters ;  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  he  ever  attempted  it,  or  designed  to 
describe  one.  The  characters  in  novels,  as  the  charac 
ters  in  history,  are  not  perfect  characters ;  and  if  any 
one  has  attempted  to  draw  such  a  character,  it  is  easy 
at  once  to  see,  whatever  else  it  may  be,  how  unlike  it  is 
to  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ.  Where  is  there  a 
character,  in  fiction,  that  can  be  held  up  to  all  the  world 
in  all  ages ;  that  can  represent  man  in  all  relations  and 
circumstances ;  that  can  be  a  sinless  model  in  conduct 
alike  toward  God  and  toward  men ;  that  can  be  a  model 
for  kings  and  princes,  sages  and  philosophers,  the  hum 
ble,  the  unlearned,  the  lowly,  the  down-trodden — in  pros 
perity  and  in  adversity;  in  joy  and  in  sorrow;  in  be 
nevolence,  in  purity,  in  gentleness,  in  the  love  of  truth, 
in  the  love  of  justice ;  in  childhood,  in  youth,  and  in 
middle  age;  under  obloquy  and  reproach;  in  dealing 
with  crafty  and  unprincipled  men ;  in  abandonment  and 
persecution ;  in  the  severest  form  of  death,  and  under 
all  that  could  shake  the  firmness  of  virtue — where  is 
there,  where  has  there  been,  such  a  character,  in  reality 
or  in  fiction,  except  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 

I  do  not  affirm  that  it  has  never  been  attempted.  We 
N 


290  LECTURES    ON   THE 

have  seen  that  there  has  been,  in  two  or  more  instances, 
a  claim  set  up  to  perfection  of  character  that  would  be 
a  set-off  against  the  claim  in  favor  of  Jesus  Christ.  I 
do  not  deny  that  writers  of  fiction  have  designed  to 
draw  a  perfect  character,  nor  that  they  have  supposed 
that  they  have  done  it — just  as  artists  have  designed  to 
present  a  perfect  human  form  in  the  Apollo  and  the  Ve 
nus  de  Medici,  and  perfect  beauty  in  the  Madonna.  I 
do  not  deny  that  the  attempt  has  been  made — where,  in 
fact,  it  has  most  signally  failed — in  the  description  of 
the  gods  appearing  in  human  form,  a  fact  which  we 
shall  see  in  another  part  of  this  Lecture  bears  vitally 
on  the  argument  before  us. 

(4.)  But  let  us  look  a  moment  at  the  difficulties  which 
have  attended  such  an  undertaking. 

(a)  First,  then,  there  has  been  no  living  model  from 
which  men  could  draw  in  forming  such  a  character; 
no  one  that  would  be  recognized  universally  as  con 
stituting  such  a  model. 

(b)  There  has  been  no  agreement  among  men  as  to 
what  would  be  such  a  standard  of  character.    The  idea 
would  differ  in  different  ages  and  among  different  na 
tions.     A  Hebrew  would  have  set  up  one  standard ;  an 
Egyptian  another ;  a  Greek  another ;  a  Roman  another ; 
a  Persian  another ;  an  inhabitant  of  China  now  has  one 
ideal  standard,  a  Hindoo  another,  a  New  Zealander  an 
other.    A  nobleman  has  one  idea,  a  philosopher  another, 
a  priest  another.     A  Mandarin  has  one  idea,  a  Brahmin 
another,  a  Turkish  mufti  another.    A  Pharisee  had  one, 
a  Sadducee  another,  and  one  of  the  sect  of  the  Essenes 
another.      Antony  in   Egypt   and  Benedict   in   Italy, 
founders  of  the  monastic  system,  one,  Ignatius  Loyola 
and  Xavier  another.     A  Catholic  priest  has  one  idea,  a 
Protestant  minister  of  religion  another.     A  peasant  of 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  291 

Galilee  could  hardly  be  supposed  to  have  the  same 
standard  which  would  be  approved  in  Corinth. 

(c)  The  ideas  of  morality  and  manners  change  in  dif 
ferent  ages.     There  are  very  low  views  of  morality  in 
one  age,  and  very  stringent  ones  in  another ;  there  are 
things  cultivated  in  one  age  which  are  disregarded  in 
another ;  there  are  things  which  in  one  age  are  consid 
ered  to  be  lofty  virtues,  which  in  another  age  cease  to 
be  considered  as  virtues  at  all.     In  the  days  of  chivalry 
and  knight-errantry  there  were  things  regarded  as  in 
dispensable,  as  entering  into  character,  which  a  change 
of  social  customs  has  rendered  at  best  obsolete ;  things, 
too,  then  regarded  as  lofty  virtues,  which  might  now  be 
considered  as,  at  least,  of  doubtful  morality.     The  re 
mark  of  Cicero,  before  referred  to  (p.  286),  may  here 
be  borne  in  mind  when   speaking  of  a  character  in 
which  there  would  be  "  perfect  wisdom" — perfecta  sapi- 
entia — he  says  that  such  a  character  had  hitherto  ex 
isted  only  in  the  imagination  of  philosophers :  they  had 
described  not  what  had  been,  but  what  would  be  if  such 
a  character  should  appear. 

(d)  There  was  this  special  difficulty  in  the  case,  also, 
that  the  work  was  to  be  done,  not  by  one  person,  who 
could  carry  out  his  own  conceptions,  but  by  several 
persons,  either  acting  in  concert,  or  acting  independent 
ly  of  each  other.     One  man  —  Homer,  Virgil,  Milton, 
Shakspeare,  can  easily  carry  out  his  own  conceptions, 
and  secure  unity  and  concinnity  in  an  epic  or  a  trage 
dy,  however  long  it  may  be,  or  however  many  charac 
ters  are  introduced.     The  writer  of  the  epic  can  place 
his  hero  in  a  great  variety  of  situations,  and  still  have 
before  him  the  same  hero,  acting  in  conformity  with  his 
character ;  the  writer  of  the  drama  can  place  any  vari 
ety  of  characters  in  different  situations,  and  lead  them 


292  LECTURES    ON   THE 

forth  in  a  great  variety  of  action,  and  still  can  so  pre 
serve  his  plan,  and  keep  up  the  identity,  that  Hamlet, 
and  Lear,  and  Othello  are  always  recognized  when  they 
speak.  But  the  case  would  be  much  more  difficult 
and  complicated  if  it  were  supposed  that  the  Iliad, 
the  ^Eniad,  the  Paradise  Lost,  or  Hamlet,  were  respect 
ively  the  production  of  a  society  or  combination  of 
poets.  One  sculptor  can  carry  out  his  own  concep 
tions,  and  produce  symmetry,  concinnity,  harmony  in 
his  statue ;  for  the  statue  is  in  his  mind,  and  he  can 
copy  it  as  it  is  there  combined  in  its  proper  propor 
tions.  But  suppose  a  company  of  artists  to  have  un 
dertaken  to  execute  the  statue  of  Minerva  or  the  Apol 
lo,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  matter  would  be  compli 
cated,  and  how  improbable  it  would  have  been  that 
statues  with  such  beauties  of  proportion  and  form 
would  ever  have  existed. 

In  the  case  of  the  life  of  the  Savior,  if  no  such  being 
ever  existed,  then  the  difficulty  is  in  seeing  how  four, 
or  five,  or  more  persons  could  combine  to  form  such  an 
idea,  and  how  they  could  combine  in  carrying  out  the 
conception.  If  he  did  really  exist,  then  the  difficulty 
would  be  to  see  how  four,  or  five,  or  more  persons  could 
so  write  his  life,  with  or  without  concert,  as  to  produce 
separate  and  independent  narratives,  and  yet  preserve 
the  unity  of  the  idea  through  the  whole. 

(e)  It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind,  also,  that  the  plan  was, 
as  appears,  not  to  represent  him  as  an  abstraction,  or 
not  to  present  the  abstract  conception  of  a  perfect  man, 
but  to  place  him  in  an  almost  endless  variety  of  situa 
tions,  and  to  show  how  he  acted  there ;  with  no  com 
ment  on  his  conduct  with  reference  to  the  question 
whether  it  was  consistent  or  not,  and  manifestly  with 
no  anxiety  on  that  point ;  without  even  saying  that  he 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  293 

was  perfect — for  that  was  not  affirmed  by  the  Evangel 
ists  themselves,  but  was  reserved  for  later  writers* — 
but  to  describe  him  as  acting,  leaving  the  world  to 
judge  from  his  actions  whether  he  was  a  perfect  being. 
Accordingly,  he  appears  before  us  in  all  the  variety  of 
circumstances  in  which  a  human  being  can  ordinarily 
be  placed;  in  such  an  endless  diversity  that  the  char 
acter,  whatever  it  was,  could  not  but  be  developed.  He 
makes  a  thousand  speeches ;  he  performs  a  thousand 
actions;  he  meets  with  thousands  of  people;  he  is 
placed  in  situations  of  temptation  and  of  provocation ; 
he  is  among  friends  and  among  foes;  he  is  with  the 
wicked  and  the  good ;  he  is  with  the  sick  and  the  dy 
ing  ;  he  addresses  great  multitudes  in  public  ;  he  warns 
and  denounces  the  wicked,  and  he  pours  consolation 
into  the  hearts  of  those  that  w^eep  in  private. 

To  see  the  difficulty,  and  the  nature  of  the  argument, 
let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  the  supposition  already 
suggested.  The  statue  of  Minerva ;  the  Apollo  Belvi- 
dere ;  the  Yenus  de  Medici,  and  the  still  more  compli 
cated  Laocoon,  are  respectively  the  work  of  one  artist. 
One  mind  formed  the  conception  ;  one  hand  carried  out 
the  conception ;  one  idea  runs  through  the  entire  work 
as  a  work  of  art. 

But  suppose  that  any  one  of  these,  either  the  most 
simple  or  the  most  complicated,  were  the  work  of  dif 
ferent  men — the  production  of  a  society  of  artists,  and 
not  of  an  individual,  either  with  or  without  a  common 
agreement  or  understanding.  Suppose  it  be  left  to  one 
man  to  form  the  head ;  to  a  second  the  hand ;  to  a  third 
the  foot ;  to  a  fourth  the  body,  each  according  to  his 
different  ideas  of  beauty.  Or  suppose,  in  one  case,  that 
it  was  left  to  independent  workmen  to  carry  out  an 
*  1  Pet.,  ii.,  22;  Heb.,  vii.,  26;  ii.,  10;  v.,  9. 


294  LECTUEES    ON   THE 

idea  of  perfection  already  agreed  upon,  and  to  be  pro 
duced  by  their  joint  labors ;  suppose,  in  another  case, 
that  four  men  should  undertake,  without  a  concerted 
idea,  to  form  independently,  by  working  on  different 
parts  of  the  statue,  the  image  of  a  perfect  man. 

And  yet  this  would  present  but  a  small  part  of  the  diffi 
culty  in  drawing  such  a  character  as  that  of  the  Savior 
— perfect  as  a  man;  perfect  and  complete  as  the  incar 
nate  Deity.  For  there  is  a  block  of  marble  to  be  mould 
ed  at  will.  It  is  cold ;  passive ;  subject  wholly  to  the 
control  of  the  chisel.  It  has  no  will ;  no  passion ;  no 
feeling ;  no  character.  It  has  no  complications  of  fancy, 
intellect,  affections.  You  can  make  it  what  you  please ; 
and  when  any  part  is  made,  it  remains  the  same.  The 
idea  rises  before  you  with  nothing  to  disturb  you,  and 
when  complete,  there  it  stands  as  you  intended  it 
should.  Here  there  is  will,  and  feeling,  and  purpose, 
and  mind,  and  heart,  and  action,  all  varying,  and  all 
producing  endless  complications. 

(5.)  Assuming,  then,  that  it  has  been  done,  the  ques 
tion  is,  How  is  this  to  be  accounted  for  or  explained  ? 

(a)  It  is  not  a  work  of  fiction.  It  bears  all  the  marks 
of  real  life.  The  life  of  Christ  is  not  a  fiction.  Christ 
is  a  real  historical  personage — as  real  as  Caesar  or  Alex 
ander.  You  can  make  nothing  of  history ;  of  nations ; 
of  opinions ;  of  philosophy ;  of  the  world ;  of  any  thing 
in  the  past,  if  this  is  denied.  All  history  is  connect 
ed  with  that  life ;  all  history,  for  eighteen  hundred 
years  at  least,  turns  on  that  life.  The  fact  that  he 
lived,  and  founded  the  Christian  religion,  is  recognized 
by  Josephus,  by  Tacitus,  by  Pliny.  It  is  not  denied 
by  Celsus,  by  Porphyry,  by  Julian,  as  it  would  have 
been  if  it  could  have  been  done.  It  is  not  denied  by 
Mr.  Gibbon,  but  is  assumed  in  his  labored  argument  ev- 


EVIDENCES    OF  CHRISTIANITY.  295 

ery  where.     It  is  not  denied  by  Strauss ;  it  is  not  de 
nied  by  Renan. 

(b)  It  is  not  a  work  of  genius.     Genius  has  never 
drawn  such  a  character ;  genius  has  never  drawn  a  per 
fect  character  at  all.     Besides,  his  biographers,  the  fish 
ermen  of  Galilee,  were  not  remarkable  for  genius,  un 
less  the  fact  of  portraying  the  life  of  Chrst  proves  that 
they  were.     They  did  nothing  else  remarkable.     They 
wrote  no  poetry.     They  promulgated  no  new  system 
of  philosophy.      They  composed  no  works  of  fiction, 
unless  this  "is  one.     They  wrote  no  dramas  to  make 
them  immortal,  as  Sophocles,  Terence,  and  Eschylus 
did.     They  gave  the  world  no  inventions  in  the  arts. 
They  made  no  discoveries  in  science.     They  suggested 
no  improvements  in  architecture ;  in  ship-building ;  in 
the  implements  of  agriculture ;  even  in  their  own  em 
ployment — in  the  methods  of  fishing.    They  would  have 
-lived  and  died  unknown — all  of  them — forgotten  just  as 
soon  as  they  had  died,  if  it  had  not  been  for  their  life 
of  Christ.   Not  a  stone  would  have  marked  their  graves ; 
not  one  of  them  would  have  been  heard  of  a  hundred 
years  after  their  death.     Nothing  else  that  they  did 
would  have  made  a  ripple  on  the  great  flowing  stream 
of  the  world's  events.     Fishermen  are  not  commonly 
immortal. 

(c)  Moreover,  if  it  were  supposed  that  they  under 
took,  by  combination  and  concert,  to  engage  in  such  a 
work  as  this,  we  should  certainly  not  have  had  this  life. 
We  should  either  have  had  a  character  intensely  and 
thoroughly  Jewish — which  the  character  of  Jesus  is  not 
— with  Jewish  conceptions ;  a  narrow,  bigoted,  Jewish 
Messiah ;  a  prince ;  a  conqueror ;  a  deliverer ;  a  Judas 
Maccabaeus ;  a  restorer  of  the  pomp  and  pride  of  the  an 
cient  monarchy,  in  accordance  with  the  Jewish  concep- 


296  LECTURES    ON   THE 

tions  of  the  Messiah,  or  we  should  have  had  a  biog 
raphy  full  of  trifles  and  small  conceits ;  of  foolish  mar 
vels;  of  improbable  stories  —  a  biography  that  might 
have  rivaled  the  Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments,  such 
as  the  writers  of  the  Jewish  Talmud  would  have  been 
likely  to  produce.  We  never  should  have  had  the  Life 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  as  we  have  it  now  in  the  New 
Testament. 

(d)  It  is  to  be  remarked,  also,  that  in  thus  drawing 
the  perfect  character  of  Christ,  the  Evangelists,  or  the 
disciples  who  followed  him,  did  not  always  themselves 
see  that  his  character  was  perfect,  or  that  he  was  always 
acting  in  the  wisest  manner.  On  that  point  they  often 
had  doubts ;  but  they  recorded  the  facts  as  they  occur 
red,  and  time  has  shown  that  his  conduct  was  perfect 
and  wise.  Thus,  on  one  occasion,  they  said  to  him,  when 
he  proposed  to  go  to  Bethany,  where  Lazarus  was, 
"  Master,  the  Jews  of  late  sought  to  stone  thee,  and  go- 
est  thou  thither  again  ?"  (John,  xi.,  8).  On  another  occa 
sion,  when  he  announced  to  his  disciples  that  he  must 
go  up  to  Jerusalem  and  die,  it  is  said,  "  Then  Peter  took 
him,  and  began  to  rebuke  him,  saying,  I2e  it  far  from 
thee,  Lord /  this  shall  not  be  done  unto  thee^  (Matt.,  xvi., 
22). 

The  argument  which  I  have  thus  far,  in  this  Lecture, 
submitted  to  you,  relates  to  the  perfect  character  of 
Christ — the  fact  that  he  had  such  a  character,  and  that 
it  has  been  so  drawn  by  the  Evangelists,  demonstrating 
that  he  was  from  God.  That  he  had  such  a  character 
proves  that  he  was  from  God,  for  he  claimed  that  he 
was ;  whether  his  character  was  real  or  whether  it  was 
imaginary,  it  was  above  the  power  of  such  men  to  draw 
and  describe  it.  The  supposition  that  it  was  real,  and 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  297 

that  they  were  under  a  supernatural  influence  in  de 
scribing  it,  explains  all. 

n.  The  other  form  of  the  argument  which  I  proposed 
to  submit  to  you  is  THAT  DERIVED  FROM  HIS  INCAR 
NATION. 

I  have  occupied  so  much  of  the  time  on  the  former 
part  of  the  subject,  that  what  remains  must  now  be 
presented  in  few  words. 

(1.)  There  has  been  a  general  belief  or  impression 
among  men  that  an  incarnation  of  the  Deity  is  possible, 
and  would  occur.  This  idea  or  impression  has  been  so 
prevalent  as  to  show  that  somehow  the  idea  does  not 
shock  ,men,  or  strike  them  as  absurd.  At  first  view  it 
would  seem  that  it  would  be  likely  to  do  this.  So  far 
exalted  must  God  be  above  men ;  so  unlike  men  must 
he  be ;  so  strange  would  seem  to  be  the  fact  that  two 
beings,  wholly  unlike  and  distinct,  should  be  combined 
in  one ;  so  impossible  is  it  to  explain  the  mode  in  which 
this  could  be  done,  that  it  might  be  presumed  that  this 
would  never  occur  to  the  mind  as  possible ;  that,  how 
ever  exalted  one  being  or  one  class  of  beings  might  be 
above  another,  the  extremes  could  be  combined  in  one ; 
that  the  highest  intellect  in  the  universe — God,  could 
be  united  permanently  with  the  lowest — man.  It  is  to 
be  admitted  at  once  that  it  requires  the  highest  exer 
cise  of  faith  to  believe  that  this  could  be  so.  Yet  some 
how  the  belief  that  the  gods  do  come  down  in  the  forms 
of  men  has  been  so  common  that  the  idea  does  not 
startle  or  amaze  mankind.  When,  at  Lystra,  Paul  heal 
ed  a  cripple,  and  the  people  lifted  up  their  voices  and 
said  of  him  and  Barnabas,  "  The  gods  are  come  down 
to  us  in  the  likeness  of  men"  (Acts,  xiv.,  11),  they  ex 
pressed  only  what  has  been  in  accordance  with  a  gen 
eral  belief.  They  were  not  shocked ;  they  hastened  to 

N2 


298  LECTURES    ON    THE 

bring  oxen  and  garlands,  that  they  might  render  them 
appropriate  homage  as  gods. 

This  general  faith  of  mankind  in  the  doctrine  of  an 
incarnation  of  the  Deity  has  been  manifested  in  every 
way  possible.  It  has  been  incorporated  into  legends, 
myths,  and  fables.  It  has  been  embalmed  in  tradition. 
It  has  been  expressed  in  the  highest  conceptions  of 
poetry.  It  has  been  made  the  foundation  of  epics  and 
tragedies.  It  has  suggested  the  noblest  conceptions  of 
sculpture.  It  has  been  uttered  in  the  profoundest  say 
ings  of  philosophy.  It  has  been  laid  at  the  foundation 
of  most  of  the  religions  of  the  world,  for  there  is  scarce 
ly  one  form  of  religion  among  men  in  which  some  trace 
of  the  conception  can  not  be  found. 

This  universal  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  an  incarna 
tion  of  the  Deity  may  be  referred  to  as  one  among 
a  thousand  arrangements  in  our  nature,  and  in  the 
forms  of  belief  among  men,  shadowing  the  truth ;  pre 
paring  men  to  expect  and  to  receive  the  truth — ar 
rangements  in  our  nature  which  can  be  explained  only 
on  the  supposition  that  there  is  truth  of  which  this 
belief  is  the  shadow,  and  that  there  is  to  be  revelation 
for  which  this  faith  was  to  prepare  the  way.  It  may 
be  doubted  whether  the  revelation  of  an  incarnation  of 
God  would  not  have  so  shocked  mankind  that  it  would 
at  once  have  been  rejected  as  impossible  if  the  minds 
of  men  had  not  been  prepared  for  its  reception  by  this 
universal  faith  in  an  incarnation.  At  all  events,  this 
universal  belief  in  what  would  seem  so  improbable, 
proves  that  the  idea  is  not  repugnant  to  the  human 
mind.  The  doctrine  of  an  incarnation  of  the  Deity  is 
not  to  be  dislodged  from  the  mind  of  man.  It  is  not  to 
be  driven  from  it  by  argument.  He  does  not  argue 
safely,  nor  will  he  argue  with  permanent  success,  who 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  299 

argues  against  the  universal  convictions  of  men  on  any 
subject.  The  faith  will  find  a  substance  corresponding 
to  it ;  the  belief  is  to  be  satisfied  by  some  revelation  in 
accordance  with  it;  and  .the  only  question  is  whether 
that  is  found  in  Christianity,  or  whether  it  is  to  be  in 
some  form  of  heathenism  already  existing,  or  whether 
it  remains  to  be  met  in  some  hitherto  undeveloped  form 
of  religion. 

(2.)  The  attempt  has  been  made  in  almost  all  coun 
tries  to  describe  the  actions  of  an  incarnate  God,  or  to 
tell  what  he  would  be.  It  may  be  said  that  the  highest 
efforts  of  genius  and  philosophy  have  been  exhausted  on 
the  attempt.  The  world  has  no  higher  genius  to  be 
employed  on  any  subject  than  has  been  employed  on 
this.  Plato  went  to  the  utmost  limit  of  his  powers  in 
describing  the  Trinity  of  his  conception — it  may  be  said 
to  the  utmost  limit  of  the  powers  of  man;  for  who  can 
bring  to  the  subject  a  mind  more  richly  endowed  than 
his?  Homer  exhausted  the  powers  of  poetry  in  de 
scribing  the  gods  as  they  came  down  to  mingle  in  the 
strifes  of  battle.  The  Greeks,  in  sculpture,  accomplish 
ed  all  that,  in  this  respect,  the  human  mind  could  be 
expected  to  do. 

In  a  previous  part  of  these  Lectures  I  have  remarked 
that  the  highest  powers  of  the  human  mind  have  been 
employed  on  the  subject  of  religion,  in  endeavoring  to 
ascertain  the  truth  about  God ;  the  immortality  of  the 
soul ;  the  plan  of  recovery  for  lost  men ;  and  the  reali 
ties  of  the  future  world.  I  remarked,  in  substance,  that 
it  seemed  not  improper  that  there  should  be  one  na 
tional  mind  created  and  endowed  as  if  with  special  ref 
erence  to  such  inquiries ;  one  people  with  whom  the  solu 
tion  of  the  question  whether  man  could  accomplish  with 
out  a  revelation  all  that  the  race  needs,  could  be  safely 


300  LECTURES    ON   THE 

intrusted.  I  remarked  that  such  a  mind  was  found  em 
inently  in  the  Greek  mind,  and  that  the  experiment  had 
been  fairly  made  there.  In  subtlety;  in  depth;  in 
acuteness;  in  the  power  of  analysis;  in  keenness  of  pen 
etration  ;  in  metaphysical  acuteness ;  and  in  the  posses 
sion  of  a  language  unrivaled  in  its  adaptation  to  such 
inquiries,  I  remarked  that  it  seemed  as  if  God  had  pre 
pared  that  mind  especially  for  such  inquiries ;  that  the 
question  as  to  what  man  could  do  by  his  unaided  pow 
ers  might  be  regarded  as  fairly  determined  there ;  that 
the  result  was  a  demonstration  that  man  was  unequal 
to  the  task  of  solving  those  great  questions,  and  that  a 
revelation  was  indispensable  for  the  race. 

I  call  your  attention  now  to  the  fact  that  God  seems 
to  have,  in  like  manner,  created  and  endowed  another 
national  mind  with  special  reference  to  the  limitations 
of  the  human  powers  on  the  subject  of  an  incarnation 
of  the  Deity.  I  refer  to  the  Hindoo  mind. 

The  human  race,  in  modern  times,  has  been  divided 
into  certain  classes,  founded  on  certain  "  types"  or  pe 
culiarities  from  the  anatomical  structure,  complexion, 
or  form,  as  the  Caucasian,  the  Mongolian,  the  Ethio 
pian,  the  American  "types."  A  classification  not  less 
remarkable,  not  bounded  by  the  same  limits,  might 
perhaps  be  made  from  the  mental  characteristics  of 
men,  and  it  might  be  found  that  these  are  sufficiently 
marked  to  constitute  a  distinction  as  real  among  the 
people  of  the  earth.  The  classes  of  mind  most  distin 
guished  might  be  arranged  in  the  following  order :  The 
Greek  mind ;  the  Teutonic  mind ;  the  Arabic  mind ; 
the  Hindoo  mind — unless  the  order  of  the  last  two 
should  be  reversed,  and  the  Hindoo  mind  be  assigned 
a  place  nearer  the  Greek.  In  acuteness ;  in  subtlety ; 
in  the  power  of  discrimination ;  in  an  adaptation  to 


EVIDENCES    OP  CHRISTIANITY.  301 

mental  and  mathematical  pursuits ;  in  poetry,  the  Hin 
doo  mind,  commonly  supposed  to  belong  to  the  classes 
of  inferior  mind  in  the  world,  has  its  appropriate  place, 
as .  endowed  by  nature,  with  the  other  three  classes 
which  I  have  mentioned,  and  has  exerted  an  influence 
on  mankind  perhaps  scarcely  less  limited  than  the  oth 
ers  that  I  have  specified. 

I  have  said  that  the  Greek  mind  seemed  to  have  been 
created  almost  with  the  design  to  show  what  the  hu 
man  intellect,  unaided,  could  do  in  finding  out  God  and 
the  truths  of  religion,  and,  by  its  failure  in  the  inquiry, 
to  show  the  necessity  of  revelation.  In  like  manner,  I 
now  observe  that  the  Hindoo  mind  seems  to  have  been 
made  to  show  what  man  could  learn  by  nature  about 
the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation,  or  what  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation  would  become  if  in 
trusted  to  such  a  class  of  mind.  For  the  Hindoo  mind 
has  been  devoted  to  the  inquiry.  Its  utmost  powers 
have  been  exhausted  on  the  subject.  The  representa 
tion  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation  has  constituted 
the  very  essence  of  its  theology.  The  system  of  relig 
ion  there  is  perhaps  the  most  perfect  system  in  the 
world  of  a  theoretical  religion  carried  out  into  minute 
details  under  the  power  of  acute  and  penetrating 
genius. 

What  that  system  is,  the  time  would  not  allow  me  to 
describe,  nor  would  it  be  necessary.  By  the  labors  of 
Christian  missionaries,  it  has  been  made  familiar  to  the 
world.  For  puerility,  for  extravagance,  for  absurdity, 
no  system  ever  proposed  to  mankind  on  the  subject  of 
religion  has  ever  equaled  it ;  and  as  the  Greek  mythol 
ogy,  "  elegant"  as  it  was,  showed  the  limit  of  the  best 
type  of  the  human  mind  on  the  general  subject  of  relig 
ion,  so  the  Hindoo  doctrines  on  the  Trinity  and  the  In- 


302  LECTURES    ON   THE 

carnation  show  the  limit  of  the  human  mind  when  ex 
ercised  on  the  problem  what  God  would  be  if  he  should 
become  incarnate. 

As  we,  therefore,  compare  the  statements  in  the  Gos 
pels  with  the  writings  of  the  Greek  philosophers  on  the 
general  subject  of  religion,  so  we  may  compare  the  de 
tails  of  the  Hindoo  theology  on  the  Trinity  and  the  In 
carnation  with  the  statements  in  the  New  Testament 
on  the  life  and  character  of  the  incarnate  Son  of  God. 
If  it  had  been  left  to  man  to  select  the  mind  that  was 
best  fitte4  to  describe  what  an  incarnate  being  would 
be,  it  is  probable  that  no  one  could  have  been  selected 
more  fitted  to  the  task  than  the  Hindoo  mind.  The  re 
sult  is  before  the  world. 

(3.)  What,  then,  are  the  difficulties  on  the  subject 
which  have  placed  it  so  far  above  the  unaided  human 
powers  ?  I  have,  in  the  former  part  of  this  Lecture,  ad 
verted  to  the  difficulties  in  describing  the  character  of 
a  perfect  man,  and  to  the  fact  that  all  efforts  to  do  this, 
except  the  attempt  in  the  Gospels,  have  failed.  I  now 
advert  more  particularly  to  the  greater  difficulties  of 
describing  the  actions  of  an  incarnate  being — of  God  in 
human  form. 

(a)  In  considering  this  part  of  the  subject,  it  is  prop 
er  to  remark  that  it  is  undoubtedly  the  fact  that  it  was 
the  design  of  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament  to  de 
scribe  such  a  character ;  that  they  had  such  a  character 
before  their  minds  in  portraying  the  character  of  Jesus ; 
or  that  they  undertook  to  write  the  life  of  one  whom 
they  regarded  as  God  in  human  form. 

This  was,  beyond  all  question,  the  view  of  the  Evan 
gelist  John,  for  he  begins  his  Gospel  by  saying  that  "  In 
the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with 
God,  and  the  Word  was  God.  And  the  Word  was  made 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  303 

flesh  and  dwelt  among  us  (and  we  beheld  his  glory,  the 
glory  as  of  the  only-begotten  of  the  Father),  full  of 
grace  and  truth"  (John,  i.,  1, 14).  The  difficulty  was  in 
describing  the  character  of  one  who  was  believed  to  be 
God,  and  who  was  known  to  be  a  man. 

(b)  If  there  was,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  former  part 
of  this  Lecture,  great  and  intrinsic  difficulties  in  de 
scribing  the  character  of  a  perfect  man,  there  was,  in 
the  case  of  the  incarnation,  this  additional  difficulty, 
which  would  seem  to  be  almost  insuperable,  of  describ 
ing  the  actions  of  an  incarnate  being — of  one  in  whom 
the  divinity  and  the  humanity  were  united.  We  know 
what  a  man  will  do ;  how  he  thinks,  speaks,  acts.  But 
how  do  we  know  what  God  will  do — how  Tie  will  think, 
speak,  act  ?  Still  more,  how  do  we  know  how  the  di 
vine  and  the  human  could  be  so  blended  that  the  ac 
tions  of  each  and  of  both  could  be  represented  as  the 
actions  of  one  person  ?  The  difficulty  was  in  putting 
fit  words  into  the  mouth  of  one  regarded  as  God,  and 
of  describing  what  he  would  do  as  the  incarnate  divin 
ity,  and  at  the  same  time  of  describing  him  as  in  union 
with,  or  in  combination  with  human  feelings,  tender 
ness,  sympathies,  compassions — one  who  could  weep,  as 
a  man,  over  a  friend  sleeping  in  the  grave,  and  at  the 
same  time,  by  a  word,  restore  him  to  life,  as  God.  For 
this  there  was  no  model — no  example.  None  of  the  de 
scriptions  of  the  actions  of  the  gods  in  the  heathen 
mythology  would  do  for  an  example ;  none  of  the  de 
scriptions  in  the  poets  could  be  the  basis  for  the  biog 
raphy  of  a  combined  human  and  divine  person.  If  it 
was  the  work  of  fancy,  it  was  to  be  mere  fancy ;  if  the 
life  had  been  real,  there  was  still  the  difficulty  of  de 
scribing  that  life  so  that  the  divine  and  the  human 
would  appear  in  the  proper  proportions ;  so  that  in  the 


304  LECTURES    ON    THE 

one  there  would  be  nothing  inconsistent  with  the  other ; 
so  that  there  would  be  nothing  incongruous,  monstrous, 
or  absurd.  The  difficulty  was  that  of  describing  God 
and  man  as  one  united  being ;  acting  as  such ;  speaking 
as  such ;  suffering  as  such ;  dying  as  such — the  difficul 
ty  of  describing  the  things  pertaining  to  his  divine  na 
ture  as  naturally  as  those  pertaining  to  his  human  na 
ture  ;  the  difficulty  of  describing  this  mysterious  being 
performing  a  miracle  as  naturally  as  he  performed  any 
other  action — making  him,  if  I  may  so  speak — as  nat 
ural  when  he  stilled  the  tempest  on  the  sea,  or  when 
he  raised  Lazarus  from  the  grave,  as  when  he  broke 
the  bread  at  the  last  Passover,  or  when,  in  words  of 
sympathy  and  love,  he  comforted  the  weeping  sisters 
of  Lazarus :  to  preserve  the  individuality,  the  separate 
consciousness,  the  expressions  of  will,  of  affection,  and 
of  feeling ;  to  describe  the  actions  of  the  divinity  in 
language  appropriate,  and  the  actions  of  the  man  in 
language  appropriate ;  to  describe  such  a  mysterious 
being  in  language  as  appropriate  when  raising  the  dead 
as  when  conversing  on  ordinary  topics  of  life ;  when 
stilling  a  tempest  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee  by  a  word  as 
God,  and  when  communing  with  the  two  disciples  on 
the  way  to  Emmaus.  Who  can  describe  such  a  being, 
in  very  varied  actions  in  life,  and  in  a  great  diversity 
of  circumstances,  and  yet  do  it  so  that  all  shall  recog 
nize  its  fitness  ?  How  could  this  be  done  by  unlettered 
fishermen  ?  How  could  it  be  done  by  four  or  more  such 
fishermen,  not  acting  in  concert,  and  yet  drawing  out 
the  details  of  such  a  life  in  a  manner  that  would  be 
harmonious,  and  so  that  its  concinnity  would  be  pre 
served  ? 

(4.)  It  has  not  been  done  elsewhere  than  in  the  Gos 
pels  ;  not  in  the  poetry  of  the  Greeks ;  not  in  the  in- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  305 

carnations  of  Vishnu.  As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the 
west  are  all  those  representations  from  what  must  be 
the  character  and  the  life  of  an  incarnate  Deity ;  and  as 
it  may  be  presumed  that  in  the  efforts  of  these  two 
classes  of  mind — the  Greek  and  the  Hindoo,  the  first 
minds  of  earth — the  power  of  man  on  that  subject  was 
exhausted,  it  may  be  affirmed  now  that  it  can  not  be 
done.  Among  the  Greeks  there  was  no  bad  passion  of 
men  that  was  not  represented  as  developed  in  their  in 
carnate  deities;  among  the  Hindoos  there  is  nothing 
absurd,  puerile,  monstrous,  extravagant,  wild,  improba 
ble,  or  even  wicked,  that  is  not  represented  in  their  in 
carnations  of  the  Deity. 

On  the  question  respecting  the  ability  of  man  to  de 
scribe,  in  a  proper  manner,  the  actions  of  an  incarnate 
Deity,  we  are  not  left  to  conjecture,  for  we  actually 
have  two  distinct  classes  of  biographers  of  Jesus — both 
claiming  to  describe  him  as  incarnate  —  that  of  the 
Evangelists,  and  that  in  the  "  apocryphal  Gospels." 
No  writings  in  the  world  are  more  unlike  each  other 
than  these ;  nothing,  perhaps,  could  more  clearly  dem 
onstrate  that  there  has  been  a  supernatural  guidance 
in  portraying  the  character  of  Jesus  in  the  Evangelists 
than  a  comparison  of  the  one  with  the  other. 

One  of  those  "  Gospels"  relates  to  the  "  infancy  of 
Jesus,"  and  the  attempt  has  been  made,  assuming  the 
fact  of  his  incarnation  or  his  divinity,  to  describe  him 
when  a  boy.  Of  such  an  attempt,  it  has  been  well  re 
marked  by  Dr.  Bushnell  (Nature  and  the  Supernatural, 
p.  280),  "If  any  writer,  of  almost  any  age,  will  under 
take  to  describe  not  merely  a  spotless,  but  a  superhu 
man  or  celestial  childhood,  not  having  the  reality  before 
him,  he  must  be  somewhat  more  than  human  himself  if 
he  does  not  pile  togeth^j  a  mass  of  clumsy  exaggera- 


306  LECTURES    GIST   THE 

tions,  and  draw  and  overdraw  till  neither  heaven  nor 
earth  can  find  any  verisimilitude  in  the  picture." 

"  These  apocryphal  Gospels,"  it  has  been  well  said, 
"  are.  related  to  the  canonical  Gospels  as  a  counterfeit 
to  the  genuine  coin,  or  as  a  revolting  caricature  to  the 
inimitable  original."  According  to  the  representation 
in  those  Gospels,  even  dumb  idols,  irrational  beasts,  and 
senseless  trees  bow  in  adoration  before  the  infant  Je 
sus  on  his  journey  to  Egypt ;  and  after  his  return,  when 
yet  a  boy  of  five  or  seven  years,  he  changes  balls  of  clay 
into  flying  birds  for  the  idle  amusement  of  his  play 
mates,  dries  up  a  stream  of  water  by  a  mere  word, 
transforms  his  companions  into  goats,  raises  the  dead 
to  life,  makes  by  miracle  a  piece  of  cabinet-work  which 
his  father  Joseph  could  not  make,  and  performs  all  sorts 
of  miraculous  cures  through  a  magical  influence  which 
proceeds  from  the  very  water  in  which  he  washed,  the 
towels  which  he  used,  and  the  bed  on  which  he  slept.* 

(5.)  But  that  in  which  men  have  failed  every  where 
else  has  been  accomplished  in  the  Gospels.  No  one  can 
show  that,  on  the  supposition  that  Christ  was  divine — 
God  as  well  as  man — there  is  in  his  recorded  life,  in  the 
sentiments  which  fell  from  his  lips,  in  the  actions  which 
he  performed,  in  the  feelings  which  he  manifested,  even 
one  thing  inconsistent  with  such  a  supposition.  That 
he  was,  as  described,  a  perfect  man,  we  have  seen.  The 
life  which  he  lived  was  that  of  a  perfect  man.  The 
death  which  he  died  was  that  of  a  perfect  man.  At  the 
same  time,  the  sentiments  which  he  uttered  were  such 
as  became  God — those  profound  truths;  those  perfect 
rules  of  morality ;  those  sublime  doctrines ;  those  de- 

*  The  particulars,  with  ample  illustrations,  may  be  seen  in  Rud. 
Hoffman's  Leben  Jesu  nach  den  Apokryphen,  p.  140-236.  See  Dr. 
Schaff's  Person  of  Christ,  p.  31-33.  ^ 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  307 

scriptions  of  God ;  those  representations  of  man ;  those 
representations  of  the  future  state — the  resurrection — 
the  judgment — heaven  and  hell.  The  miracles  which  he 
wrought  were  such  as  God  only  can  perform,  and  the 
language  which  he  used  in  healing  the  sick,  in  opening 
the  eyes  of  the  blind,  in  stilling  the  storm,  and  in  rais 
ing  the  dead,  is  as  simple  and  appropriate  as  that  which 
lie  Employed  in  his  ordinary  intercourse  with  his  disci 
ples  and  friends.  For  he  is  described  as  uttering  those 
great  truths  as  naturally  and  as  easily  as  conversing  on 
the  ordinary  topics  of  life,  and  the  description  of  his 
raising  the  dead  is  a  description  of  an  act  as  natural 
and  easy  as  the  most  ordinary  action  of  life.  We  may 
safely  challenge  any  one  who  denies  the  fact  of  the  in 
carnation  to  show,  on  the  supposition  that  there  was  an 
incarnation,  what  there  is  in  the  whole  of  the  four  Gos 
pels  that  is  inconsistent  with  such  an  idea,  or  that 
strikes  the  mind  as  incongruous  on  such  a  supposition. 
And  even  with  this  model  before  us,  let  it  be  attempted 
again,  even  by  the  most  cultivated  intellect  of  the 
world,  to  represent  an  incarnate  God,  and  we  should 
have  a  representation  of  the  gods  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
or  the  puerilities  and  absurdities  of  the  Hindoo  incarna 
tions,  or  a  very  imperfect  copy  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 

(6.)  How,  now,  is  this  to  be  accounted  for  ?  If  the 
case  was  real,  and  if  there  was  a  real  incarnation  in  the 
person  of  Christ,  and  if  these  illiterate  men  were  in 
spired  to  give  a  just  account  of  his  life,  then  the  whole 
matter  is  explained ;  if  neither  of  these  were  true,  then 
the  mystery  remains  as  yet  unsolved,  and  will  remain 
unsolved  forever. 


308  LECTURES    ON   THE 


LECTURE  IX. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION  AS  ADAPTED  TO  THE  WANTS 
OF  MAN,  AS  ILLUSTRATED  IN  THESE  EIGHTEEN  H¥ND- 
RED  YEARS. 

AFTER  the  lapse  of  eighteen  hundred  years,  in  which 
Christianity  has  had  a  fair  opportunity,  with  other  re 
ligions,  to  make  a  trial  of  what  it  is,  we  ought  to  be 
able  to  show  that  it  meets  a  want  in  man,  and  that  the 
manner  in  which  it  does  this  is  proof  of  its  divine  ori 
gin.  The  argument  would  be  the  stronger  if  it  could 
be  shown  that  other  forms  of  religion  have  failed  to 
meet  this  want,  and  that  they,  in  this  respect,  leave  the 
race  as  they  find  it.  The  direct  argument  for  the  di 
vine  origin  of  Christianity,  as  derived  from  this  source, 
would  be  that  God  has  endowed  man  with  certain 
wants  and  necessities  as  a  religious  being,  and  that,  in 
the  failure  of  all  other  systems,  the  system  which  would 
actually  meet  those  wants  must  have  had  its  origin  in 
Him  who  has  thus  endowed  the  human  soul. 

It  may  be  assumed  now  that  the  ancient  religions  of 
the  world  did  not  meet  those  wants,  and  that  for  this 
reason  they  have  been  suffered  to  die  out.  The  He 
brew  religion  did  not  do  this;  for,  although  it  has  re 
mained  in  the  world,  and  is,  in  fact,  found  in  almost  all 
nations,  it  does  not  so  commend  itself  to  mankind  as  to 
make  them  desire  to  revive  it,  and  to  rebuild  the  Tem 
ple  ;  and,  but  for  some  purposes  which  can  be  best  ex 
plained  on  the  supposition  that  the  prophecies  in  the 
Bible  respecting  it  are  to  be  fulfilled,  it  would  have 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  309 

died  out  long  ago,  and  would  be  now  reckoned  with 
the  religion  of  the  Egyptians  and  the  Babylonians  as 
among  the  things  that  are  past. 

The  religion  of  the  Chaldseans,  of  the  Egyptians,  of 
the  Assyrians,  of  the  Persians,  of  the  Greeks,  of  the  Ro 
mans,  did  not  meet  the  wants  of  mankind,  and  have 
been  suffered  to  die.  The  religion  of  the  Egyptians 
was  dead,  not  to  be  revived  again,  when  Christianity 
appeared.  The  same  was  true  of  the  religion  of  Baby 
lon  and  Nineveh.  The  religion  of  Zoroaster  was  dying 
away.  The  religion  of  the  Greeks  had  lost  its  power, 
and  that  of  the  Romans  was  following  in  the  same  line 
of  decline  and  extinction.  Those  religions  were  becom 
ing  effete  and  obsolete;  and  whether  a  new  religion 
should  come  or  not  to  meet  the  wants  of  mankind, 
there  was  nothing  that  could  revive  them,  and  restore 
to  them  their  former  ascendency.  They  have  now,  in 
fact,  died  out,  and  nothing  can  revive  and  restore  them. 
Julian  brought  all  the  power  of  the  empire  to  bear  on 
the  expressed  purpose  of  restoring  paganism,  endeavor 
ing  to  reanimate  it  by  incorporating  into  it,  in  some 
measure,  the  spirit  of  Christianity ;  for  he  "  beheld  with 
envy,"  says  Mr.  Gibbon,  "  the  wise  and  humane  regula 
tions  of  the  Church ;  and  he  very  frankly  confesses  his 
intention  to  deprive  the  Christians  of  the  applause,  as 
well  as  the  advantage,  which  they  had  acquired  by  the 
exclusive  practice  of  charity  and  beneficence."*  He 
failed,  and  the  attempt  was  decisive  and  final.  No  one 
of  imperial  rank  has  ventured  on  the  experiment  since, 
and  the  world  has  shown  no  disposition  to  recall  to  life 
the  ancient  religions  of  Egypt,  of  Babylon,  of  Nineveh, 
of  Persia,  of  Greece,  of  Rome.  Not  an  idol  of  the  an 
cient  religions  has  been  restored  to  its  place.  Not  a 
*  Decline  and  Fall,  vol.  ii.,  p.  31. 


310  LECTURES    ON   THE 

temple  of  ancient  paganism  is  occupied  as  a  place  of 
worship.  There  are  no  augurs,  flamens,  priests,  or  vestal 
virgins;  there  are  no  restored  altars  and  no  sacrifices. 
Those  priests  are  disrobed;  those  altars  are  destroyed; 
those  temples,  immortal  works  of  art,  stand  as  noble 
ruins,  to  tell  what  the  religion  was  in  its  palmy  days, 
but  no  one,  denizen  or  foreigner,  visits  them  now  to 
worship  the  gods  once  honored  there.  The  Parthenon 
is  in  ruins ;  the  Pantheon  is  a  Christian  church,  in  hon 
or  of  the  Virgin  Mary ;  Minerva  is  no  more  adored  in 
the  one,  and  the  gods  of  the  nations  are  no  longer  set 
up  in  the  other.  These  ancient  religions  did  not  meet 
the  wants  of  human  nature,  and  they  have  been  suffered 
to  die  away,  to  be  revived  no  more. 

It  is  a  fair  question  whether  Christianity  has  become, 
or  ever  will  become,  thus  antiquated  and  obsolete,  and 
whether,  in  the  advanced  period  of  the  world  which  we 
have  reached,  it  shows  that  it  is  not  adapted  to  the  na 
ture  of  man,  and  is  to  die  away,  to  be  superseded  or  not 
by  some  other  form  of  religion ;  whether  the  time  has 
come,  or  will  soon  come,  when,  whatever  it  may  have 
done  hitherto,  some  new  system — say  the  "positive 
philosophy,"  shall  be  substituted  in  its  place.  "  Chris 
tianity,  we  are  told,"  says  Professor  Goldwin  Smith, 
"  like  other  phases  of  the  great  onward  movement  of 
humanity,  has  its  place,  and  that  a  great  place  in  histo 
ry.  In  its  allotted  epoch  it  was  progressive  in  the  high 
est  degree,  and  immense  veneration  and  gratitude  are 
due  to  it  on  that  account ;  but,  like  other  phases  of  the 
same  movement,  it  had  its  appointed  term.  That  term 
it  has  already  exceeded.  It  has  already  become  sta 
tionary  or  retrograde ;  it  has  begun,  instead  of  being  the 
beneficent  instrument,  to  be  the  arch-enemy  of  human 
progress.  It  cumbers  the  earth ;  and  the  object  of  all 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  311 

honest,  scientific,  free-thinking  men,  who  are  lovers  of 
their  kind,  should  be  to  quicken  the  death-pangs  into 
which  it  has  manifestly  fallen,  and  remove  once  for  all 
this  obstruction  to  the  onward  movement  of  the  race. 
Confusion  and  distress  will  probably  attend  the  final 
abandonment  of '  the  popular  religion ;'  but  it  is  better 
at  once  to  encounter  them  than  to  keep  up  any  longer 
an  imposture  which  is  disorganizing  and  demoralizing 
to  society,  as  well  as  degrading  to  the  mind  of  man, 
Let  us  at  once,  by  a  courageous  effort,  say  farewell  to 
our  old  faith,  and,  by  a  still  more  courageous  efibrt, 
find  ourselves  a  new  one."* 

In  illustrating  the  argument  which  I  propose  to  sub 
mit  to  you  at  this  time,  it  will  be  proper,  in  the  first 
place,  to  make  some  inquiries,  and  to  lay  down  some 
principles,  in  regard  to  man,  considered  with  reference 
to  religion,  or  to  the  necessities  of  his  nature  as  demand 
ing  a  religion ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  to  consider  the 
question  whether  Christianity  satisfies  the  wants  of  our 
nature  in  this  respect ;  or,  in  other  words,  how  far  in 
eighteen  hundred  years  it  has  commended  itself  to  man 
as  meeting  those  wants,  and  as  thus  showing  that  it  is 
from  God. 

The  entire  argument  will  be  stated  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  there  has  been  a  practical  trial  of  Christianity  on 
these  points  for  a  period  now  extending  over  more  than 
eighteen  hundred  years. 

I.  The  first  point  relates  to  human  nature — to  man — 

considered  with  reference  to  the  necessity  of  a  religion. 

It  may  be  assumed  that  a  system  of  religion  claiming 

to  be  from  God,  in  order  that  it  may  be  received  by 

man,  must  be  in  accordance  with  the  moral  nature  of 

man,  and  with  his  innate  convictions  of  what  is  true 

*  Lectures  on  the  Study  of  History,  p,  118. 


312  LECTURES    ON   THE 

and  what  is  right.  In  other  words,  a  revelation  will 
not  contradict  what  our  nature  has  taught  us  to  believe 
to  be  true  and  right,  but  such  a  revelation  will  be  in 
the  line  of  such  convictions,  and  will  add  to  them,  not 
ignore  or  deny  them. 

This  is  a  point  to  which  the  infidel  may  hold  us.  If 
the  pretended  revelation  is  not  of  this  character,  he  has 
an  argument  against  it  which  we  can  not  well  answer ; 
if  it  has  this  character,  we  have  an  argument  for  its 
truth  to  which  he  may  find  it  not  less  difficult  to  reply. 

(l.)  The  first  point  to  be  considered  here  is,  What  is 
the  "  end"  of  life  ?  What  is  man  made  for  ?  What,  if 
the  object  of  his  creation  were  accomplished,  or  fully 
carried  out,  would  be  secured,  so  that  we  could  say  that 
the  purpose  or  end  of  life  was  fully  obtained  ?  These 
questions  are  equivalent  to  that  which,  to  most  of  us, 
was  proposed  in  our  early  childhood,  as  being  proper 
not  only  to  our  age  then  as  entering  on  life,  but  as  ly 
ing  at  the  foundation  of  every  just  system  of  theology, 
"  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ?"  The  framers  of  our 
Westminster  Catechism  felt  that  that  was  the  first  sub 
ject  on  which  it  was  proper  to  instruct  a  child;  the 
man  of  mature  or  advanced  years  will  feel  that  that  is 
the  great  question  which  is  to  be  before  him  alike  in 
the  middle  and  at  the  end  of  life. 

Can  we  look  into  the  nature  of  man,  and  find  an  an 
swer  to  this  question  ? 

Men  answer  it  according  to  their  own  philosophy; 
their  propensities ;  their  pleasure.  The  Epicurean  was 
ready  with  his  answer ;  the  Stoic  with  his ;  the  Plato- 
nist  with  his.  The  votary  of  the  world ;  the  child  of 
gayety ;  the  disciple  of  mammon ;  the  aspirant  for  fame, 
each  is  ready  with  his.  There  is  something  which,  being 
accomplished,  would  be  to  them  the  "end  of  life;" 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  313 

which  would  meet,  as  they  suppose,  all  the  aspirations 
of  their  nature,  and  which,  being  obtained,  would  be  an 
answer  to  the  question.  For  what  purpose  were  they 
made?  Why  were  they  endowed  with  the  faculties 
which  have  been  conferred  upon  them  ?  Why  have 
such  hopes  and  aspirations  been  implanted  in  their 
souls  ? 

To  furnish  a  just  answer  to  the  question,  let  us  look 
at  the  following  things : 

(a)  There  is  such  an  "  end"  or  object  contemplated  in 
the  creation  of  man.     There  are  so  many  aspirations ; 
so  many  hopes;  so  many  desires — there  is,  if  the  ex 
pression  may  be  used,  so  much  machinery  in  the  mental 
construction  of  man,  that  we  look  for  an  end  or  object, 
just  as  we  do  in  the  watch  or  the  steam-engine.    There 
is  a  stimulus  prompting  to  something,  of  which  the 
main-spring  in  the  one,  and  the  steam  in  the  other,  and 
the  arrangements   for  distributing  and  directing  the 
power  in  both>  would  be  a  faint  illustration.    If  there  is 
no  such  end  or  object,  all  the  complexity  of  wheels  and 
springs,  so  nicely  adjusted  in  the  one,  and  all  the  ar 
rangements  of  boilers  and  valves  in  the  other,  would  be 
a  mere  waste.     In  our  moral  nature  there  is  much  of 
this.     There  is  clear  proof  of  design.     There  is  great 
skill  displayed.    There  is  a  very  nice  adjustment  of  our 
different  mental  powers  to  each  other.    There  is  no  con 
fusion.     The  powers  of  our  nature  are  never  displaced. 
There  is  more  in  the  variety  of  those  powers  than  in  the 
most  complicated  machinery ;  there  is  more  skill  in  the 
adjustment.     There  has  been  a  vast  expenditure  of  wis 
dom  in  our  mental  constitution.     Can  we  believe  that 
it  has  been  for  naught — for  no  "  end"  or  purpose  ? 

(b)  Whatever  that  "  end"  may  be,  considered  as  char 
acterizing  man,  it  must  be  common  to  the  race.     If  the 

O 


314  LECTURES    ON   THE 

race  is  one,  we  shall  find  it  under  all  the  types  of  hu 
manity.  If  the  Caucasian,  Mongolian,  Ethiopian,  and 
American  varieties  constitute  one  race,  we  shall  find 
it  the  same  in  all ;  if  these  different  varieties  are  dif 
ferent  races,  we  shall  find  some  such  "end"  pertain 
ing  to  each  of  those  races  respectively ;  if  we  find  that 
there  is  some  one  end  common  to  all  these  varieties,  it 
will  be  difficult  to  set  aside  the  argument  from  that  fact 
that  these  varieties  are  one  race,  and  that  the  Bible  ac 
count  of  the  origin  of  man,  as  derived  from  one  pair,  is 
true.  The  inquiry  is,  What  is  the  "  end"  of  man  ? — not 
of  the  brute.  There  is  an  "  end"  or  purpose  in  their  cre 
ation,  but  we  should  not  be  satisfied  on  being  told  that 
the  end  of  our  creation  is  the  same  as  theirs.  That  is 
a  philosophy  not  to  be  recognized  in  this  place  as  true 
philosophy  which  makes  no  distinction  between  man 
and  the  brute. 

(c)  Whatever  that  "  end"  or  purpose  may  be,  it  must 
relate  to  the  future.  As  far  as  we  have  the  means  of 
judging,  the  brute  creation,  so  far  as  consciousness  is 
concerned,  if  that  term  may  be  applied  to  a  brute,  acts 
only  with  reference  to  the  present.  Brutes  make  no  cal 
culations  ;  they  form  no  plans ;  they  have  no  "  ends"  of 
living  which  extend  into  that  which  is  to  come.  There 
is  nothing  in  their  nature  which,  being  developed,  will 
find  its  complement  or  fulfillment  in  any  thing  lying 
in  the  future.  The  arrangement  by  which  the  beaver 
builds  its  dam,  and  the  bee  hoards  its  stores  of  honey, 
and  the  squirrel  gathers  nuts  and  acorns  for  the  winter, 
and  the  bird  makes  its  nest,  is  an  arrangement  of  in 
stinct,  not  of  thought — whatever  that  instinct  may  be. 
However  in  other  respects  man  may  resemble  the 
brute,  yet  he  differs  in  this — that  his  plans  do  pertain 
to  the  future,  and  that  those  plans  are  not  the  result  of 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  315 

0 

instinct,  but  of  conscious  thought.  There  is  something 
in  the  future  in  which  our  happiness  lies.  It  is  not  in 
the  present. 

(d)  That  arrangement  looks  on  to  a  future  state. 
What  I  mean  is,  that  there  is  that  in  the  mental  consti 
tution  of  man  which  looks  to  a  continuance  of  being  be 
yond  death ;  which  would  not  be  found  in  man  if  he  were 
not  to  exist  there ;  and  which  can  be  explained  only  on 
the  supposition  that  he  is  immortal — unless  it  shall  be  al 
leged  that  the  Maker  of  man  has  deceived  and  beguiled 
him  by  unfounded  hopes  and  fears :  that  is,  unless  a 
watchmaker  had  made  a  watch  with  no  purpose  that  it 
should  keep  time,  or  a  machinist  had  made  a  steam-en 
gine  with  no  purpose  that  it  should  ever  accomplish 
any  end  in  the  cotton  factory,  on  the  railroad,  or  in  the 
steam-boat.  This  arrangement  is  in  the  very  nature  of 
man,  and  it  extends  to  all  the  results  of  human  conduct. 
The  plans  of  men  relate  to  the  future.  The  results  of 
their  actions  strike  into  the  future.  Those  results  are 
indefinite  in  regard  to  the  future ;  and  as  it  is  said  that 
the  circle  of  the  wave  made  by  the  pebble  may  expand 
indefinitely  over  the  ocean,  or  the  slightest  vibration 
of  the  air  by  speech  may  affect  the  whole  atmosphere 
of  the  globe,  or  any  change  on  the  earth's  surface,  or  in 
the  earth's  interior,  may  affect  all  the  worlds  of  matter, 
so  it  is  certain  that  human  conduct,  in  its  results,  will 
extend  indefinitely  into  the  eternity  of  the  future. 
Those  results  travel  over  all  the  changes  of  this  life  to 
meet  us  when  those  changes  are  passed  through,  and 
will  meet  us  in  the  world  where  there  is  no  change. 
Nothing  interrupts  those  results.  The  deeds  of  youth 
travel  on  to  meet  the  old  man  bending  over  the  grave ; 
the  crimes  committed  in  one  land  travel  over  continents 
and  oceans  to  meet  him  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe ; 


316  LECTURES    ON   THE 

* 

the  conduct  of  yesterday  comes  over  the  slumberings 
of  the  night,  and  meets  us  to-day.  Sleep  does  not  in 
terrupt  that  course ;  time  does  not ;  distance  does  not ; 
and  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  death  will,  for 
death  is  not  an  interruption  to  life  and  consciousness — 
no,  not  so  much  as  a  night's  sleep. 

There  is,  therefore,  some  "  end"  for  which  man  was 
made,  and  that  end  relates  to  the  future. 

(2.)  There  is  a  religious  want  in  man  that  must  be 
met  in  a  revelation  from  God.  Man  is  a  religious  being, 
and  unless  a  pretended  revelation  meets  and  satisfies 
the  wants  of  man  as  a  religious  being,  it  can  not  be  re 
ceived  as  a  revelation  from  God. 

This  want  in  man  as  a  religious  being  exists  in  two 
forms :  (a)  as  essential  to  his  nature,  and  (b)  as  a  fallen 
being. 

(a)  As  man ;  as  essential  to  his  nature. 

This  is  an  original  principle  of  our  nature,  and  is  uni 
versal.  It  is  not  the  result  of  culture ;  it  is  not  orig 
inated  as  the  world  advances  from  barbarism  to  civiliza 
tion  ;  it  is  not  detached  from  society  as  a  relic  of  bar 
barism  when  the  world  makes  those  advances ;  it  does 
not  characterize  exclusively  any  one  race  of  men ;  it  is 
not  among  the  things  which  enter  into  the  formation 
of  the  different  "  types"  of  mankind ;  it  does  not  serve 
in  any  way  to  distinguish  the  Caucasian,  the  Mongolian, 
the  Ethiopian,  and  the  American  races ;  it  is  not  con 
nected  with  the  origin  of  species,  or  with  the  develop 
ment  of  species.  Every  where  it  exists,  from  the  lowest 
form  of  fetichism  to  the  highest  forms  of  devotion  in 
which  homage  is  rendered  to  the  one  infinite  and  inde 
pendent  God. 

The  desire  of  knowledge  is  universal  in  man ;  the  de 
sire  of  society, is  universal;  the  desire  of  happiness  is 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  317 

universal ;  the  principle  of  acting  for  the  future  is  uni 
versal.  The  existence  of  will,  and  imagination,  and 
memory,  and  reason  is  universal — in  the  lowest  "  types" 
of  humanity,  and  in  the  highest ;  in  the  Ethiopian,  the 
American,  the  Mongolian,  and  the  Caucasian  races. 
The  mind  of  the  Caucasian  does  not  differ  from  the 
mind  of  the  Ethiopian  in  this  respect.  In  neither  case 
is  it  the  result  of  culture ;  in  neither  case  has  it  sprung 
from  the  change  from  barbarism  to  civilization;  in 
neither  case  can  it  be  classed  among  the  "  artificial" 
wants  that  have  been  originated  by  an  advanced  state 
of  society ;  in  neither  case  is  it  detached  by  progress 
in  civilization.  Nothing  has  been  added  in  respect  to 
these  qualities  of  mind  by  civilization ;  nothing  has  been 
dropped  as  the  world  has  advanced.  There  never  has 
been  a  tribe  of  men  found,  in  the  lowest  forms  of  hu 
manity,  where  these  things  do  not  exist;  there  never 
has  been  such  an  advance  made  in  civilization  that  any 
new  faculty  or  power  has  been  added  to  the  human 
mind.  All  these  are  original  endowments ;  all  are  the 
work  of  the  Creator. 

Just  so  it  is  in  religion.  He  who  forms  a  theory  of 
human  nature  on  the  supposition  that  man  is  not  a  re 
ligious  being,  and  has  not  a  religious  want  to  be  sup 
plied,  forms  just  such  a  theory  as  he  would  should  he 
assume  that  man  has  not  a  will,  or  is  not  endowed  with 
memory  or  with  reason.  He  who  attempts  to  meet  the 
wants  of  the  world  without  recognizing  the  religious 
principle,  acts  just  as  wisely  as  he  would  who  should 
attempt  to  meet  the  wants  of  society  on  the  supposi 
tion  that  man  has  no  desire  of  knowledge ;  that  he  has 
no  social  propensities ;  that  he  has  no  will  to  be  gov 
erned  ;  that  he  has  no  rational  nature  to  guide  him ; 
that  he  has  no  passions  to  be  restrained. 


318  LECTURES    ON   THE 

That  religious  want  must  be  met  and  satisfied  in  a 
pretended  revelation.  If  this  is  not  done,  the  race  will 
sooner  or  later  throw  the  system  off — as  the  old  sys 
tems  of  Greek  and  Roman  mythology  have  been  thrown 
off,  as  not  meeting  the  wants  of  man. ' 

(b)  There  is  a  religious  want  in  man  as  a  fallen  and 
sinful  being.  It  is  in  vain  to  deny  that  the  race  is  sin 
ful,  for  all  laws  proceed  on  that  supposition ;  all  history 
has  recorded  the  fact.  Tribunals  of  justice,  prisons, 
police  arrangements,  and  the  human  consciousness,  all 
proclaim  that  man  is  a  fallen  being. 

The  remedy  for  this  is  somehow  to  be  found  in  relig 
ion.  Such  is  the  universal  belief  of  man.  The  convic 
tion  of  depravity  takes  this  form,  and  is  illustrated  by 
the  religions  of  the  world.  There  are  no  religions  on 
earth  for  perfectly  pure  and  holy  beings ;  there  are  none 
which  are  not  founded  on  the  conviction  of  human  de 
pravity;  there  are  none  which  do  not  make  arrange 
ments,  in  some  form,  for  deliverance  from  sin. 

All  the  religions  of  the  world  are  religions  of  sin 
ners.  With  the  exception  of  a  few  Pharisees,  Philoso 
phers,  and  Deists — Lord  Herbert,  the  first  and  the  best 
of  British  Deists,  is  not,  however,  one  of  these,  for  he 
made  "  repentance  for  sin"  one  of  the  ten  articles  of 
universal  belief  as  entering  into  religion  —  with  these 
exceptions,  all  the  religions  of  the  world  are  the  relig 
ions  of  sinners.  They  are  religions  of  sacrifice ;  of  pen 
ance  ;  of  pilgrimages ;  of  self-inflicted  tortures  designed 
to  propitiate  the  gods,  and  to  secure  safety  and  forgive 
ness.  Hecatombs  of  victims  have  been  offered,  and 
rivers  of  blood  have  flowed  to  make  expiation  for  hu 
man  guilt. 

There  is  no  conviction  more  nearly  universal  in  our 
world  than  that  the  nature  of  man  is  sinful,  and  that  a 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  319 

religion  to  meet  his  wants  must  be  a  religion  that  will 
propose  an  expiation  for  sin,  and  that  will  give  peace 
to  a  guilty  conscience. 

This  universal  conviction  may  be  regarded  as  the 
basis  of  our  argument  on  this  subject,  and  as  final  in 
the  case.  It  is  vain  to  argue  against  universal  convic 
tions  of  the  human  mind.  It  is  vain  to  attempt  to  set 
them  aside.  He  never  argues  safely  who  argues  against 
those  universal  convictions ;  and  however  specious  or 
plausible  a  system  of  philosophy  may  be,  it  will  ulti 
mately  be  set  aside  unless  it  is  founded  on  those  uni 
versal  convictions. 

It  may — it  must  be  assumed,  therefore,  that  a  relig 
ion  to  meet  the  wants  of  men  must  be  a  religion  adapt 
ed  to  sinners,  or  must  be  based  on  the  supposition  that 
there  is  not  only  a  religious  want  in  man  founded  in  his 
original  nature,  but  also  in  the  fact  that  he  is  a  sinner. 

(3.)  There  are  some  principles  pertaining  to  these 
facts  which  the  friends  and  the  enemies  of  revelation 
must  alike  admit  to  be  true.  They  are  such  as  the  fol 
lowing  : 

(a)  There  is  such  a  thing  as  truth. 

Truth  may  be  regarded  as  comprising  two  things: 

First.  Truth  as  spoken,  stated,  represented ;  that  is,  as 
exhibited  by  words,  by  signs,  by  pictures,  by  statuary. 
In  this  sense,  truth  is  the  representation  of  things  as  they 
are.  A  painting,  in  this  sense,  is  true  if  it  is  a  proper 
representation  of  a  landscape,  of  a  waterfall,  of  a  his 
torical  scene,  or  of  the  human  countenance.  A  drama 
or  a  novel  is  true  if  it  correctly  represents  human  na 
ture,  or  is  a  just  delineation  of  the  passions  of  man. 
Astronomical  truth  is  a  correct  representation  of  the 
heavenly  bodies ;  geological  truth,  a  correct  representa 
tion  of  the  world  before  the  creation  of  man,  as  dis- 


320  LECTURES    ON    THE 

closed  by  rocks  and  fossils ;  historical  truth,  a  correct 
representation  of  events  as  they  have  occurred  in  past 
ages;  mathematical  truth,  a  correct  representation  of 
facts  in  regard  to  number  and  quantity. 

Second.  Truth  considered  as  existing  in  the  reality  of 
things,  or  in  the  events  and  facts  which  are  thus  repre 
sented,  or  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  such  representation. 
In  all  truth  there  is  not  only  a  representation,  but  a  basis 
for  the  representation,  or  something  on  which  the  repre 
sentation  is  founded,  and  to  which  it  must  conform. 
Thus,  if  the  statement  is  made  that  two  and  two  make 
four,  or  that  all  the  angles  of  a  triangle  are  equal  to 
two  right  angles,  the  statement  of  these  facts  is  truth  as 
represented;  but  there  is  truth  as  the  basis,  or  as  the 
foundation  of  this  statement.  These  facts  or  realities 
remain  the  same  whether  there  is  any  representation  of 
them  or  not;  whether  they  are  known  or  unknown; 
whether  the  representation  of  them  by  words,  or  signs, 
or  symbols,  is  true  or  false. 

(b)  There  is  that  in  man  which  responds  to  truth,  or 
which  is  a  just  ground  of  appeal  in  regard  to  truth.  The 
mind  is  so  constituted  that  an  impression  is  made  upon 
it  by  truth  different  from  the  impression  made  by  error. 
It  is  so  made  that  it  may  be  an  element  of  calculation 
in  endeavoring  to  influence  others ;  that  they  may  be, 
and  will  be,  affected  by  truth  if  it  is  fairly  brought  be 
fore  their  minds ;  so  made  that  it  is  fair  to  assume  that 
there  will  be  a  uniform  result  in  regard  to  the  same  in 
dividual,  and  in  regard  to  different  individuals,  by  the 
proper  exhibition  of  truth.  Wherever  man  is  found, 
civilized  or  savage ;  whatever  language  he  may  speak ; 
under  whatever  government  he  may  live ;  whatever 
laws  he  may  obey,  or  whatever  form  of  philosophy  or 
religion  he  may  embrace,  so  far  as  truth  makes  any  im- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  321 

pression,  it  is  always  the  same  impression,  for  it  always 
finds  that  in  the  mind  which  responds  to  it  in  precisely 
the  same  way.  This  fact,  not  indeed  capable  of  dem 
onstration,  we  always  assume  as  a  maxim,  or  as  an  ele 
mentary  thought  in  our  endeavors  to  influence  others. 
We  have  the  fullest  conviction  that  to  two  boys  in  a 
school,  the  proposition  that  two  and  two  make  four 
conveys  to  them,  as  boys,  precisely  the  same  idea,  and 
conveys  to  them  now  the  same  idea  which  it  will  when 
they  reach  middle  life  or  old  age.  We  can  not  doubt, 
also,  that  it  conveys  to  those  boys  the  same  idea  which 
it  did  to  Newton  in  the  maturity  of  his  powers,  or  that, 
to  an  American  savage,  or  to  a  wandering  Bedouin,  or 
to  a  New  Zealander,  it  would  convey  precisely  the  same 
impression.  In  like  manner,  also,  although  we  may  not 
be  able  to  demonstrate  it,  we  have  the  fullest  assurance 
that  the  impression  or  image  conveyed  to  the  mind  by 
a  tree,  a  landscape,  a  waterfall,  a  flower,  is  the  same ; 
the  same  to  the  individual  mind  in  all  its  changes ;  the 
same  to  all  minds,  whether  civilized  or  savage.  And, 
on  the  same  principle,  so  far  as  the  minds  of  men  are 
enlightened  to  appreciate  truth,  the  same  thing  occurs 
in  regard  to  moral  truths.  That  a  parent  should  love 
his  child ;  that  a  child  should  venerate  its  parent ;  that 
ingratitude  is  base ;  that  treachery  is  wrong ;  that  to 
do  good  to  others  is  right — all  these,  and  similar  propo 
sitions,  we  have  every  reason  to  suppose,  convey  exact 
ly  the  same  idea  to  every  mind.  We  may  suppose,  in 
deed,  that  it  might  have  been  otherwise ;  that,  for  ex 
ample,  the  eyes  of  men  might  have  been  so  made  that 
what  to  one  conveys  the  idea  of  white  might  have  con 
veyed  to  others  the  idea  of  red ;  that  men  might  have 
been  so  made  that  what  to  one  seems  to  be  a  triangle 
would  seem  to  another  to  be  a  quadrangle ;  that  what 
O2 


322  LECTURES    ON   THE 

seems  now  to  be  virtuous  and  honorable  to  one,  might 
have  seemed  dishonorable  and  wicked  to  another ;  but 
it  is  evident  that,  in  that  case,  the  world  could  not  have 
moved  on  in  harmony  at  all,  any  more  than  it  could  at 
the  confusion  of  tongues  at  Babel.  All  would  have 
been  disorder ;  language  would  have  been  useless  ;  any 
communication  of  ideas  from  one  to  another  would 
have  been  impossible ;  society  would  have  been  imprac 
ticable  ;  speech,  schools,  writing,  printing,  painting, 
statuary,  would  have  been  useless,  and  the  world  would 
have  a  universal,  though  temporary  Babel,  for  it  would 
soon  have  come  to  an  end. 

(c)  Truth  depends,  for  its  reception  by  the  mind,  on 
its  being  perceived  as  truth. 

The  mind  sees  or  perceives  it  to  be  true.  When  the 
truth  referred  to  is  an  axiom,  it  is  perceived  at  once 
without  any  medram ;  when  it  is  the  result  of  a  demon 
stration,  the  process  of  the  demonstration  merely  puts 
the  mind,  in  reference  to  the  truth  demonstrated,  in  the 
same  state  in  which  it  is,  without  any  such  process — 
as  it  is  in  reference  to  an  axiom  or  self-evident  truth. 

In  illustration  of  this,  it  may  be  remarked  that  it  is 
possible  to  conceive  that  the  power  of  perceiving  truth 
as  intuitive,  or  without  the  aid  of  reasoning,  might  ex 
ist  to  almost  any  extent  in  created  beings,  as  it  exists 
in  an  absolutely  unlimited  extent  in  God.  We  may 
suppose  that  there  might  be,  and  that  there  actually 
may  be  now,  created  intelligences  to  whom  all  that  is 
now  perceived  by  the  highest  intellects  on  earth  as  the 
result  of  the  profoundest  analysis  may  be  seen  to  be 
true  at  a  glance,  and  may  be,  in  fact,  to  their  minds, 
maxims  or  self-evident  truths,  lying,  in  their  investiga 
tions,  at  the  foundation  of  a  vastly  higher  method  of 
reasoning  than  is  yet  possible  to  man,  and  bearing  the 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  323 

same  relation  to  a  system  of  truth  which  is  not  now 
conceivable  by  us,  which  the  maxims  of  geometry  do  to 
the  highest  forms  of  mathematical  reasoning  known 
among  men.  It  is  said  of  Newton  that  he  read  the 
propositions  of  Euclid  as  if  they  were  maxims  or  self- 
evident  truths,  as  being  too  plain  and  obvious  to  need 
demonstration.  Even  the  celebrated  forty-seventh  prop 
osition  of  the  first  book  he  did  not  pause  to  demon 
strate,  for  he  saw  at  a  glance  the  truth  of  the  proposi 
tion,  and  it  can  not  be  doubted  that  there  may  be  minds 
to  whom  the  highest  discoveries,  even  of  Newton,  would 
be  perceived  at  once  to  be  axioms  or  self-evident  truths, 
from  which  they  would  start  off  on  a  higher  career  of 
reasoning  than  would  be  possible  for  any  intellect 
known  to  us.  Then  there  is  the  mind  of  God,  high 
above  all,  to  whom  all  truth  is  self-evident — the  mind 
of  One  who  sees  all  truth  as  we  perceive  the  simplest 
maxims  of  geometry ;  who  never  reasons,  but  sees  and 
states  things  at  once  as  they  are. 

(d)  There  is  a  distinction  between  right  and  icrong, 
and  this  distinction  is  founded  in  the  nature  of  things. 

A  thing  can  not  be  both  right  and  wrong  at  the  same 
time ;  or  now  right  and  now  wrong,  as  the  result  of  ap 
pointment  ;  or  made  right  or  wrong  by  mere  will.  An 
object  can  not  be  black  and  white  at  the  same  time ;  or 
'now  white  and  now  black,  as  the  result  of  appointment; 
or  made  white  or  black  by  mere  will.  That  can  not  be 
made  right  to-day  which  in  precisely  the  same  circum 
stances  was  wrong  yesterday,  and  that  can  not  be 
right  for  one  class  or  order  of  beings  which  in  precise 
ly  the  same  circumstances  would  be  wrong  in  another. 
A  lie  can  not  be  truth,  nor  can  truth  be  falsehood ;  hon 
esty  can  not  be  fraud,  nor  fraud  honesty ;  love  can  not 
be  hatred,  nor  hatred  love ;  and  as  these  can  not  be 


324  LECTURES    ON   THE 

transmuted  into  one  another,  so  by  no  authority  can 
they,  in  precisely  the  same  circumstances,  be  made  obli 
gatory  in  one  case  and  be  prohibited  in  another.  No 
one  can  believe  that  justice  in  God  or  man  depends  on 
mere  will,  or  that  it  would  be  proper  for  either  to  per 
form  any  act  which  he  chose,  and  call  it  justice.  In  like 
manner,  no  one  can  believe  that  truth  in  God  or  man  de 
pends  on  mere  will,  and  that  it  would  be  proper  for 
either  to  make  any  statement  which  he  chose  and  to 
call  it  truth,  or  that  it  would  be  right  to  call  one  utter 
ance  to-day  truth,  and  to  call  it  to-morrow  falsehood. 
Every  man  is  somehow  so  made  that  he  can  not  believe 
that  the  contrary  of  this  would  be  true,  or  that,  under 
any  circumstances,  it  would  be  proper  for  even  God  to 
reverse  things  in  such  a  way  that  it  would  be  right  for 
Him  to  do  what  he  now  denounces  and  condemns  as 
evil,  false,  and  wrong,  or  that  the  mere  act  of  his  doing 
it  would  make  it  right.  Every  conception  which  we 
can  form  of  the  Supreme  Being  implies  that,  by  His  own 
eternal  nature,  he  is  just,  and  holy,  and  true,  and  good ; 
not  that  he  has  made  himself  to  be  so  by  an  arbitrary 
act,  or  that  the  contrary  would  be  just,  and  holy,  and 
true,  and  good,  if  found  in  Him.  Account  for  it  as  we 
may,  we  are  so  constituted  that  we  must  believe  this, 
and  can  not  believe  the  contrary ;  and  this  fact  demon 
strates  that  it  was  designed  by  our  Maker  that  it  should* 
be  so. 

(e)  There  is  that  in  man  which  responds  to  the  distinc 
tion  of  right  and  wrong. 

This  proposition  is  almost  too  plain  to  admit  of  illus 
tration.  All  men  instinctively  act  on  it  in  their  treat 
ment  of  others ;  all  legislators  assume  it  to  be  truev,  all 
parents  regard  it  as  indisputable  in  their  treatment  of 
their  children;  all  authors  who  write  on  the  subject  of 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  325 

morals  take  it  for  granted ;  and  all  preachers  of  the 
Gospel  make  it  the  ground  of  their  most  solemn  ap 
peals  and  most  earnest  exhortations.  To  Jews  and 
Gentiles  alike  —  barbarians,  Scythians,  bond  and  free, 
the  apostle  Paul  could  say  of  his  preaching,  "  by  mani 
festation  of  the  truth  commending  ourselves  to  every 
man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God"  (2  Cor.,  iv.,  2), 
nor  could  we  preach  at  all  if  we  did  not  assume  that 
this  could  be  done. 

(f)  A  revelation  from  God  icill  not  contradict  any 
truth,  on  any  subject,  however  that  truth  may  be  made 
known. 

This,  too,  may  be  assumed  as  an  axiom,  and  is  too 
plain  to  admit  of  argument.  "All  truth  is  from  the 
sempiternal  source  of  light  divine."  One  truth  can 
not  contradict  another,  and  God  can  not  contradict  in 
his  word  what  he  has  declared  in  any  other  way  to  be 
truth. 

A  revelation  wTill  not  contradict  its  own  teachings — 
that  is,  it  will  not  deny  in  one  place  what  it  affirms  in 
another ;  a  revelation  will  not  contradict  scientific  truth 
— that  is,  God  will  not,  in  his  word,  contradict  what  he 
has  revealed  to  men  through  their  own  reason  or  by 
his  own  works ;  a  revelation  will  not  contradict  histor 
ical  truth — that  is,  God,  in  his  word,  will  not  contradict 
what  has  actually  occurred  and  has  been  properly  re 
corded  ;  a  revelation  will  not  contradict  moral  truth — 
that  is,  the  word  of  God  will  not  contradict  what  has 
been  clearly  made  known  as  right  or  wrong  by  the  con 
stitution  of  the  mind  as  he  has  made  it.  These  points 
are  mere  illustrations  of  what  is  said  in  the  Bible  of 
God :  "He  can  not  deny  himself"  (2  Tim.,  ii.,  13).  The 
infidel  has  a  right  to  hold  us  to  this  proposition  when 
we  urge  the  claims  of  a  revelation ;  the  defender  of  such 


326      '  LECTURES    ON  THE 

a  revelation  is  bound  to  show  that  the  Bible  does  not 
contradict  itself,  and  that  it  does  not  contradict  any 
truth,  from  any  other  source,  communicated  to  man. 

(g)  A  pretended  revelation  which  should  contradict 
established  truth  could  not  be  received  by  mankind. 

This,  also,  is  so  plain  as  not  to  admit  of  demonstra 
tion.  Two  opposite  statements  could  not  both  be  re 
ceived  as  true.  No  conceivable  evidence  in  favor  of 
a  revelation  could  be  stronger  than  the  conviction  that 
two  and  two  make  four,  or  that  all  the  angles  of  a  tri 
angle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles.  The  mind  must 
believe  these  things.  That  mind  is  not  in  a  sound  state 
which  does  not  believe  them. 

In  the  application  of  this  rule  it  is  implied  (l)  that, 
if  faith  in  a  professed  revelation  be  demanded,  it  is 
right  to  require  that  all  its  statements  shall  be  fairly 
consistent  with  the  ascertained  facts  of  science ;  and  (2) 
it  is  equally  implied  that  it  is  proper  to  demand,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  if  there  is  any  alleged  conflict  between 
the  statements  of  the  book  and  the  truths  of  science, 
the  facts  of  science  shall  be  clearly  established.  It  is 
right  for  the  friends  of  revelation,  for  example,  to  insist, 
if  it  is  alleged  that  man  has  been  longer  on  the  earth 
than  the  statements  in  the  Bible  shall  warrant,  that  the 
fact  that  he  has  been  thus  long  on  the  earth  shall  be 
established  as  a  fact,  and  that  it  shall  not  be  mere  the 
ory  or  conjecture ;  that  if  it  be  alleged  that  the  Mosaic 
statement  that  all  the  races  of  men  on  the  earth  are  de 
scended  from  one  pair  is  inconsistent  with  the  doctrine 
of  the  separate  origin  of  the  races,  the  fact  of  such  a 
separate  origin  shall  be  clearly  demonstrated ;  that  if  it 
is  alleged  that  the  disclosures  of  geology  are  inconsist 
ent  with  the  statements  in  the  book  professing  to  be  a 
revelation,  the  facts  of  geology  shall  be  clearly  estab- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  327 

lished.  The  alleged  truths  of  science  must  be  demon 
strated;  the  facts  must  be  ascertained;  the  contradic 
tion  must  be  palpable ;  the  discrepancy  must  be  so  great 
that  the  statements  can  not,  by  any  fair  rules  of  inter 
pretation,  be  reconciled. 

(ti)  A  revelation  on  the  same  line  of  subjects  will,  so  far 
as  coincident,  carry  forward  the  truth  already  known, 
not  contradict  it. 

The  meaning  of  this  rule  is  this — that  a  revelation 
may  make  disclosures  in  regard  to  truth  in  advance  of 
what  is  known  from  other  sources,  or  may  state  what 
will  be  seen  to  be  true  when  the  discoveries  of  science 
come  up  to  it,  if  they  ever  do ;  in  other  words,  that  the 
disclosures  of  revelation  will  be  in  advance  of,  and  not 
contradictory  to,  the  truths  otherwise  ascertained.  Be 
tween  the  two  there  will  be  no  more  discrepancy  than 
between  the  actual  though  imperfect  knowledge  of  a 
child  and  the  more  matured  and  perfect  knowledge  of 
the  same  child  when  he  becomes  a  man ;  than  between 
the  lowest  truths  of  geometry,  as  comprehended  by  the 
school-boy,  and  the  highest  astronomical  disclosures  of 
Newton  or  Laplace. 

An  illustration  of  this  point  may  be  derived  from  the 
disclosures  of  the  telescope.  Vast  as  are  the  revela 
tions  made  by  that  instrument ;  far  as  it  penetrates  into 
distant  worlds ;  and  much  as  it  has  enlarged  the  bound 
aries  of  human  knowledge,  all  its  disclosures  are  in  en 
tire  harmony  with  those  of  the  naked  eye,  and  only  car 
ry  forward,  on  the  same  line,  what  was  seen  by  the  un 
aided  process  of  vision.  The  telescope  never  penetrates 
regions  where  the  laws  of  light  are  different  from  those 
which  affect  the  naked  eye.  It  never  discloses  facts  in 
regard  to  other  worlds  which  are  inconsistent  with  the 
doctrine  of  universal  gravitation.  It  never  penetrates 


328     "  LECTURES    ON   THE 

into  the  empire  of  another  God ;  and  could  the  eye  it 
self,  now  so  comparatively  limited  in  its  range  of  observ 
ation,  and  to  which  so  much  which  the  telescope  re 
veals  is  unknown,  be  so  enlarged  in  its  powers  as  to 
take  in  all  that  the  telescope  reveals,  it  would  see 
things  just  as  it  does  now  by  its  aid.* 

These  seem  to  me  to  be  just  principles  in  regard  to  a 
revelation ;  principles  on  which  the  friends  and  the  en 
emies  of  the  Bible  may  agree. 

(4.)  I  proceed,  then,  to  observe  that  a  revelation  from 
God — a  religion  which  he  reveals — will,  in  accordance 
with  these  principles,  meet  the  wants  of  man ;  alike  his 
religious  wants  as  a  creature,  and  his  wants  as  a  sinner. 
It  may  be  demanded  that  satisfactory  provision  shall 
be  made  for  both.  If  provision  is  not  made  for  them, 
it  may  be  at  once  rejected ;  it  will,  sooner  or  later,  be 
dropped,  as  the  religions  of  Egypt,  of  Babylon,  and  of 
Greece  have  been.  Such  a  revelation  must  meet  and 
satisfy  the  essential  religious  want  in  the  nature  of 
man,  and  it  must,  at  the  same  time,  meet  and  satisfy  his 
wants  as  a  sinful  and  fallen  being,  and  in  both  commend 
itself  to  him  as  true.  These  are  by  no  means  the  same 
thing,  as  the  provision  to  be  made  for  the  wants  of  a 
sick  person  and  a  person  in  health  are  by  no  means  the 
same. 

For  the  former  of  these  there  is  the  demand  for  a 
God  to  be  worshiped ;  there  is  the  want  of  that  which 
will  answer  the  question  "  What  is  the  end  of  life  ?"  or 

*  These  points  seem  to  me  to  deserve  a  more  extended  illustration 
than  would  have  been  possible  in  a  single  Lecture,  and  I  may  be  per 
mitted,  therefore,  to  refer  to  a  work  entitled  "Inquiries  and  Sugges 
tions  in  Regard  to  the  Foundation  of  Faith  in  the  Word  of  God," 
published  by  Parry  &  McMillan,  1859,  from  which  these  remarks  have 
been  abridged,  p.  5-36. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  329 

why  man  was  made — some  object  worthy  of  the  pow 
ers  which  have  been  called  into  being  ;  there  is  the  ne 
cessity  of  some  statement  or  promise  which  will  meet 
the  desire  of  immortality ;  there  is  the  need  of  an  affir 
mation  that  there  will  be  a  world  beyond  the  grave, 
where  the  soul  may  forever  expand  in  power  and  in 
knowledge ;  there  is  the  need  that  there  shall  be  a  range 
of  truths  and  objects  that  shall  correspond  with  the 
greatness  of  the  human  soul. 

For  the  latter  of  these  the  demand  would  be  for  a  rev 
elation  of  some  system  that  would  in  its  arrangements 
contemplate  man  as  a  fellow-being,  and  meet  and  sat 
isfy  his  wants  as  such.  Thus,  in  studying  the  works  of 
nature  with  reference  to  the  question  whether  the  world 
has  been  fitted  up  so  as  to  meet  the  wants  of  man,  there 
are  two  distinct  questions :  the  one,  Whether  there  are 
arrangements  to  meet  his  wants  as  a  creature  of  God, 
considered  without  reference  to  the  question  whether 
he  is  liable  to  disease  ?  and  the  other  is,  Whether  there 
are  arrangements  to  meet  his  wants  considered  as  liable 
to  disease  and  as  a  sufferer?  These  are  by  no  means 
the  same  questions.  The  arrangements  might  have  been 
complete  in  regard  to  the  one,  while  no  provision  should 
have  been  made  for  the  other.  The  one  is  the  inquiry 
which  would  have  occurred  to  man  when  in  the  Garden 
of  Eden,  and  when  a  stranger  to  disease ;  the  other  is 
an  inquiry  which  could  not  but  occur  to  him  when  re 
jected  from  Eden,  when  driven  forth  to  encounter  dis 
ease,  and  when  death  was  in  prospect.  The  former  in 
quiry  might  have  been  easily  answered.  The  first  Par 
adise,  in  its  arrangement,  presented  an  answer  at  once. 
But  what  would  the  man  have  discerned  there  which 
would  have  contemplated  the  latter  ?  Even  if  there 
were  such  things  there,  until  he  had  become  a  fallen  be- 


330  LECTURES    ON   THE 

ing,  and  was  brought  into  circumstances  when  he  need 
ed  them,  they  must  have  passed  for  things  whose  use 
was  unknown. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  there  is  in  nature  just 
such  an  arrangement ;  an  arrangement  made  in  the  be 
ginning  of  the  creation,  and  in  anticipation  of  the  fact 
that  man  would  be  subject  to  disease.  It  is  to  be  re 
marked,  also,  that,  so  far  as  appears,  the  one  is  entirely 
independent  of  the  other;  the  one  is  in  no  manner 
necessary  to  the  other.  The  world,  as  a  world,  might 
have  been  complete  without  attaching  healing  proper 
ties  to  plants  and  minerals ;  certainly  without  creating 
things  whose  only  properties  of  value  are  healing  prop 
erties.  If  mercury  could  not  have  been  so  made  as  to 
have  been  of  value  in  the  arts  without  also  the  append 
age  that  it  might  be  a  medicine,  yet  certainly  there  was 
no  necessity  for  creating  the  Peruvian  tree  whose  only 
value  is  the  bark,  and  the  only  value  of  whose  bark  is 
the  cure  of  fevers. 

In  fact,  the  arrangement  for  healing  is  an  entirely  in 
dependent  system,  and  yet  as  essential  to  man  as  the 
arrangements  for  the  supply  of  his  wants  in  health. 
The  wonderful  process  by  which  a  broken  bone  knits 
itself  together  was  in  no  wise  necessary  for  the  making 
of  a  bone ;  the  process  by  which  a  severed  vein  or  arte 
ry  will  plow  for  itself  a  new  groove,  and  lay  down  a 
new  artery  or  vein  for  the  blood,  was  in  no  wise  neces 
sary  for  the  making  of  a  vein  or  artery  originally,  nor 
for  the  original  and  healthful  purposes  of  either — for  ar 
teries  and  veins  for  conducting  the  blood  from  and  to 
the  heart  would  have  been  perfect  without  this  arrange 
ment  ;  the  creation  of  the  materials  of  the  materia  medi- 
ca  of  the  healing  art  was  in  no  wise  necessary  for  the 
production  of  food  for  man.  It  is  a  separate  arrange- 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  331 

merit.  The  one  is  not  necessary  to  the  other.  The  one 
does  not  explain  the  other.  The  one  is  of  importance 
to  man  every  where ;  the  other  is  the  foundation  of  a 
distinct  profession — the  medical  profession. 

But  the  world  as  it  is  would  not  have  been  complete 
without  both,  any  more  than  a  system  of  religion  for 
man  would  have  been  complete  for  man  alike  as  a  crea 
ture  adapted  to  worship,  and  as  a  sinner  to  be  redeemed 
and  saved,  without  both.  A  system  of  arrangements 
for  man  in  health  would  not  have  met  the  wants  of  man 
in  sickness,  and  a  system  which  did  not  contemplate  the 
latter,  and  which  did  not  make  provision  for  it,  would 
not  have  been  adapted  to  our  world  as  it  is.  Hence  it 
was,  that  in  the  very  structure  of  the  creation,  there 
was  an  underlying  system  in  anticipation  of  the  fact 
that  man  would  be  a  sufferer — a  system  doubtless  ex 
isting  in  paradise,  and  a  system  certainly  now  extend 
ing  all  over  the  world — for  the  arrangements  for  heal 
ing  diseases  are  found  on  all  the  continents  and  in  all 
the  islands,  and  in  every  land  there  are  men  endowed 
with  peculiar  faculties  to  study  nature  with  this  view, 
and  to  apply  these  remedies  to  the  ever-varying  forms 
of  disease. 

Precisely  of  the  same  nature,  though  on  a  higher 
scale,  is  it  true  that  there  was  need  of  an  arrangement 
which  would  contemplate  man  as  a  sinner,  and  which 
would  make  provision  for  his  wants  as  such;  and  as 
the  world  of  nature  could  not  be  regarded  as  adapted 
to  the  wants  of  man  as  he  is  without  the  arrangements 
to  alleviate  pain  and  to  cure  diseases,  so  the  arrange 
ments  for  religion  would  not  have  been  complete  with 
out  a  remedial  system  for  sinners. 

II.  We  come,  then,  to  what  must  be  the  main  inquiry 
on  this  subject,  the  question  whether  Christianity  is  a 


332  LECTURES    ON   THE 

religion  which  thus  meets  and  satisfies  the  wants  of 
man ;  or,  in  other  words,  how  far  in  eighteen  hundred 
years  it  has  commended  itself  to  man  as  meeting  those 
wants,  and  as  thus  showing  that  it  is  from  God. 

(1.)  Considered  as  a  religion,  it  meets  the  essential 
wants  of  man.  We  have  seen  what  those  wants  are  as 
every  where  indicated  in  our  world — as  essential;  as 
deep-laid  in  our  nature ;  as  characterizing  man.  Man 
wants  a  religion.  He  wants  a  God.  He  wants  an  ob 
ject  of  worship.  He  wants  the  hope  of  another  life. 
He  wants  the  assurance  that  the  soul  is  immortal. 

Certainly  all  these  are  found  in  Christianity.  It  is  a 
"religion"  It  is  nothing  else.  That  is  its  essential 
idea.  It  is  not  philosophy ;  it  is  not  science ;  it  is  not 
a  political  theory ;  it  is  a  religion,  and  meets  the  wants 
of  the  soul  only  in  regard  to  religion.  It  reveals  a  God, 
an  object  of  worship.  In  the  God  of  the  Bible  there  is 
all  that  can  enter  into  the  mind  in  the  conception  of  a 
God.  He  is  infinite ;  he  is  uncreated ;  he  is  almighty ; 
he  is  the  maker  of  all  things;  he  is  a  Being  whose 
agency  is  every  where ;  he  is  the  Ruler  of  the  universe ; 
he  is  holy,  just,  pure,  merciful.  All  that  the  soul  can 
demand  in  the  idea  of  worship  surely  —  of  adoration, 
homage,  reverence  —  is  to  be  found  in  the  God  of  the 
Bible. — Man  wants  some  just  view  of  what  is  the  prop 
er  "  end"  of  life.  Christianity  declares  it.  It  reveals 
an  "  end"  of  living  worthy  of  the  powers  with  which  he 
is  endowed,  for  it  brings  before  him,  as  the  main  object 
of  life,  the  idea  of  living  for  eternity. — Man  wants  the 
hope  of  another  life.  Christianity  reveals  such  a  hope, 
and  sets  it  before  him  as  that  which  is  in  advance  of 
all  others,  and  which  is  to  crown  all. — Man  wants  the 
assurance  that  the  soul  is  immortal.  What  he  can  not 
find  in  the  argument  of  Plato ;  what  he  can  not  find  in 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  333 

any  other  religion,  he  finds  here,  laid  at  the  foundation 
of  the  whole  system,  that  the  soul  is  to  live  forever. 

(2.)  It  meets  the  wants  of  man  as  a  sinner — as  a  fallen 
being.  We  could  not  regard  it  as  of  value ;  we  could 
not  receive  it  as  a  religion,  if  it  did  not.  It  meets  that 
want,  (a)  It  is  the  main  idea  in  Christianity,  running 
through  the  entire  system,  and,  more  than  any  other 
feature,  constituting  its  peculiarity,  (b)  It  is  a  special 
and  distinct  arrangement,  as  much  so  as  the  arrange 
ment  for  healing  disease  is  in  the  departments  of  na 
ture.  There  are  things  in  Christianity,  entering  into 
its  very  nature,  which  would  not  have  been  there,  or 
which  would  have  had  no  place,  if  it  had  not  been  sup 
posed  that  man  was  a  sinner,  just  as  there  are  arrange 
ments  in  nature  which  would  not  have  been  there,  or 
which  would  have  had  no  place,  if  it  had  not  been  sup 
posed  that  man  would  be  a  sufferer,  and  the  one  with 
out  such  a  supposition  would  be  as  inexplicable  as  the 
other,  (c)  The  system  makes  ample  provision  for  par 
don.  It  bears  on  its  face  the  assurance  that  the  ar 
rangement  is  such  that  any  and  all  may  be  forgiven.  It 
excludes  no  one  by  the  idea  that  its  power  can  not 
reach  the  case,  or  that  it  was  not  intended  for  such  a 
sinner,  or  that  it  is  exhausted,  as  no  one,  under  any 
form  of  disease,  is  shut  out  from  the  hope  of  a  cure  by 
the  idea  that  no  medicinal  remedies  were  provided  in 
the  secrets  of  nature  for  such  a  case,  or  that  the  medi 
cines  of  the  world  are  exhausted.  It  excludes  no  one 
by  the  idea  that  the  sin  is  so  great  that  it  can  not  be 
forgiven,  and  in  the  proclamation  of  amnesty  it  makes 
no  exceptions.  Human  governments  often  do.  In  the 
times  of  the  American  Revolution,  Samuel  Adams  and 
John  Hancock  were  excepted  by  name  in  the  royal 
proclamation  of  amnesty ;  in  our  own  great  rebellion 


334  LECTURES    ON   THE 

large  numbers  were  excepted  by  proclamation  from 
the  offer  of  pardon,  (d)  It  contains  provisions  for  par 
don  that  are  honorable  to  God  and  honorable  to  man. 
Man,  even  guilty  man,  could  not  accept  it  if  it  were  not 
so.  A  child  offending  could  not  wish  to  be  forgiven  if 
the  pardon  could  not  be  extended  to  him  without  dis 
gracing  his  parent;  an  offender  against  human  law 
must  demand  that  the  p'ardon  in  his  own  case  should 
not  be  dishonorable  to  the  government  and  to  his  coun 
try.  So  man,  even  a  sinner,  could  not  receive  a  relig 
ion  as  coming  from  God  if  it  were  essential  to  the 
idea  of  the  religion  that  God  was  regardless  of  truth, 
of  justice,  and  of  law ;  that  he  had  no  concern  about 
his  own  character ;  that  his  veracity  was  of  no  conse 
quence  ;  that  his  law  could  be  set  aside  at  will ;  that  it 
was  his  nature  to  treat  virtue  and  vice,  truth  and  false 
hood,  rebellion  and  allegiance,  both  alike.  Who  could 
put  confidence  in  such  a  God  ?  Who  could  embrace  a 
religion  founded  on  such  assumptions  ?  Now  something 
like  this  does  occur,  and  always  occurs  in  pardon  as  ex 
tended  to  the  guilty  under  a  human  government.  The 
pardon  of  an  offender,  justly  convicted — and  there  is  no 
other  proper  idea  of  pardon — is  always  a  proclamation 
that  in  some  cases  crime  may  be  committed  with  im 
punity  ;  that  in  some  cases  the  law  is  to  be  disregarded, 
and  the  decrees  of  justice  to  be  set  aside;  that  guilty 
men  may  go  at  large  for  whose  crimes  justice  has  re 
ceived  no  atonement — no  satisfaction.  Pardon  in  such 
a  case  always  does  just  so  much  to  weaken  the  strong 
arm  of  the  law ;  is  just  so  far  a  proclamation  that  crime 
may  be  committed  with  impunity.  There  is  not  a  gov 
ernment  in  the  world  that  could  safely  make  the  proc 
lamation  of  universal  forgiveness  as  it  is  made  in  the 
Gospel ;  that  could  throw  open  the  doors  of  all  prisons ; 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  335 

that  could  invite  all  convicts — burglars,  counterfeiters, 
thieves,  and  murderers,  to  come  out  and  roam  at  large 
over  the  land.  Who  would  feel  that  his  house  or  his 
life  was  safe  ?  (e)  Again :  The  system  of  pardon  pro 
posed  in  Christianity  is  honorable  to  man — to  those  who 
have  offended.  It  requires  no  needless  humiliation ;  no 
mortifying  concessions  or  confessions ;  no  conformity  to 
rites  and  ceremonies  that  would  tend  only  to  debase 
and  degrade.  It  might  have  been  otherwise;  and  we 
could  not  have  rejected  it  with  safety  if  it  had  been  so. 
If  it  had  required  men  to  gird  themselves  with  sack 
cloth  ;  to  cast  dust  on  their  heads ;  to  sit  down  in 
ashes ;  to  clothe  themselves  in  habiliments  of  squalid 
poverty ;  to  put  on  robes  such  as  they  wore  who  were 
condemned  by  the  Inquisition — with  tongues  of  fire  and 
pictured  demons ;  to  go  in  solemn  procession  with  some 
symbol  of  eternal  death  as  deserved  by  sin ;  to  pass  thus 
through  life  humbled  and  degraded,  man  could  not  have 
proved  that  this  would  be  wrong ;  he  could  not  have 
shown  that  it  would  not  be  wise  and  well  to  accept  of 
pardon  and  life  even  on  these  conditions.  In  the  reign 
of  Edward  III.  of  England  (1347),  when  Calais  was  be 
sieged,  Edward  required  as  a  condition  in  surrendering 
the  city  when  it  could  hold  out  no  longer,  that  "  six  of 
the  most  considerable  citizens  should  be  sent  to  him,  to 
be  disposed  of  as  he  should  think  proper;  that  they 
should  come  to  his  camp  carrying  the  keys  of  the  city 
in  their  hands,  bareheaded  and  barefooted,  with  ropes 
about  their  necks,  and  on  these  conditions  he  promised 
to  spare  the  lives  of  the  remainder."*  So,  at  least  for 
the  sake  of  illustration,  we  may  conceive  that  God 
might  have  required  all  men  to  appear  before  him  in 
some  similar  manner  as  a  sign  of  submission  and  re- 
*  Hume's  History  of  England,  vol.  i.,  p.  577. 


336  LECTURES    ON   THE 

pentance,  and  as  a  condition  of  pardon.  But  he  has 
done  no  such  thing.  There  are  no  degrading  and  de 
basing  rites  in  the  Christian  religion ;  there  are  no  hu 
miliations  required  for  the  mere  sake  of  humiliation ; 
there  are  no  arrangements  merely  to  mortify  men. 
There  are  no  mummeries ;  there  are  no  painful  postures 
or  processions ;  there  are  no  requirements  like  those  of 
letting  the  nails  grow  in  the  clenched  hand  till  they  cut 
into  the  flesh ;  fixing  the  arm  in  one  position  till  it  be 
comes  rigid;  swinging  on  hooks  fastened  in  the  mus 
cles  ;  standing  on  lofty  columns  in  heat,  and  cold,  and 
storm ;  or  withdrawing  to  caves  and  solitudes  far  from 
the  haunts  of  men.  All  these  are  the  inventions  of  men 
themselves ;  they  show,  perhaps,  what  men  would  wil 
lingly  have  submitted  to  if  such  degradations  had  been 
required;  they  show  what  men  regard  as  the  proper 
representations  and  symbols  of  the  evil  and  degrada 
tion  of  sin.  But  in  the  Gospel  there  are  no  degrading, 
no  dishonorable  acts  required.  Let  us  suppose,  for  the 
sake  of  illustration,  that  there  had  been.  The  son  of  an 
honorable  father  is  guilty  of  a  crime.  He  is  told  that 
he  may  be  pardoned  if  he  will  perform  some  dishonor 
able  act.  He  is  to  betray  his  father,  and  deliver  him 
up  to  death.  '  No,'  says  he,  with  generous  indigna 
tion,  '  I  do  no  such  thing.  I  can  not  purchase  life  on 
any  such  condition.  I  am  indisputably  guilty ;  but  I 
can  not  add  to  that  guilt  a  baser  crime  that  I  may  live. 
I  will  not  add  meanness,  and  ingratitude,  and  filial  im 
piety  to  my  crime  for  the  sake  of  saving  my  life.  Wel 
come  the  rack;  welcome  the  thumb-screw;  welcome  the 
gibbet,  rather  than  that  I  should  be  guilty  of  such  a 
crime  !'  God  requires  nothing  of  this.  He  asks  no  self- 
inflicted  tortures ;  no  painful  pilgrimages ;  no  renuncia 
tion  of  the  dignity  that  belongs  to  a  man,  that  he  may 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  337 

be  saved.  He  asks  that  he  shall  repent  of  sin  and  for 
sake  it — for  it  is  that  which  debases  and  degrades ;  he 
asks  that  he  shall  accept  of  the  offer  of  mercy  on  the 
terms  which  he  proposes — for  that  is  the  way  in  which 
we  receive  all  the  blessings  which  come  from  his  hand ; 
he  asks  that  he  shall  lead  a  pure  life,  and  hereafter  keep 
his  Maker's  law. 

(3.)  The  religion  is  on  a  line  with  all  that  exalts  and 
adorns  the  race ;  with  the  solution  of  the  problems 
which  men  are  endeavoring  to  work  out  in  regard  to 
law,  to  liberty,  to  happiness.  It  attaches  itself,  by  a 
natural  affinity,  to  all  that  ameliorates  and  civilizes  so 
ciety  ;  to  all  that  is  stricken  out  in  the  progress  of  the 
world  that  raises  men  to  a  higher  elevation.  There  are 
religions  which  hold  men  as  they  are ;  there  are  relig 
ions  which  are  obstructions  to  the  advancement  of  the 
race;  there  are  religions  which  are  to  be  removed  if 
the  race  shall  make  progress ;  there  are  religions  which 
foster  vice ;  there  are  religions  which  debase  and  de 
grade  mankind.  There  was  much  in  the  religion  of 
Greece  that  tended  to  encourage  vice — for  "  it  was  not 
for  every  man  to  go  to  Corinth"* — refined,  in  many  re 
spects,  as  Corinth  was;  there  is  every  thing  in  the 
Buddhist  religion  to  fix  society  where  it  is,  and  to  pre 
vent  progress;  there  is  much  in  the  Hindoo  religion 
which  must  be  removed  if  true  science  makes  advances, 
for  its  religion  and  its  science  are  identical — disclosed 
in  the  same  books,  and  sanctioned  by  the  same  author 
ity  ;  there  is  every  thing  in  the  monastic  system  to  hold 
men  in  degradation ;  there  is  much  in  the  Roman  Cath 
olic  system  generally  that  has  tended  to  retard  the 
progress  of  mankind.  It  was  not  by  an  accident  that 
Galileo  was  imprisoned;  it  is  not  by  an  accident  that 


338  LECTURES    ON    THE 

the  Bible,  under  that  system,  is  not  spread  abroad  in 
vulgar  tongues. 

I  am  not  ignorant  that  it  has  been  affirmed  that 
Christianity  has  retarded  the  progress  of  mankind,  nor 
are  you  or  I  ignorant  of  the  arguments  which  have  been 
referred  to  on  this  subject. 

It  is  not  for  me  now,  and  in  this  place,  to  attempt  to 
prove  that  Christianity  has  been  connected  with  the 
progress  of  the  race.  In  the  fullest  blaze  of  Christian 
ity,  and  at  the  same  time  surrounded  with  the  highest 
developments  of  society  in  intelligence,  in  literature, 
in  the  sciences,  and  in  the  ornamental  and  useful  arts ; 
in  an  age  and  a  country  where,  under  the  influence  of 
Christianity,  the  comforts  of  life  have  been  carried  to 
the  highest  point  hitherto  reached ;  in  a  land  of  free 
dom,  made  free  under  the  best  developments  of  the 
Christian  religion,  it  would  not  become  me  to  pause, 
even  were  there  time,  to  attempt  to  prove  that  Chris 
tianity  is  not  inimical  to  the  highest  development  of  so 
ciety  ;  that  it  is  on  the  line  of  all  that  adorns  and  ex 
alts  the  race. 

There  have  been,  indeed,  other  civilizations;  there 
has  been  progress  in  other  lands  than  those  where 
Christianity  has  prevailed. 

But  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  there  has  been  no  "  sus 
tained  historical  progress"  except  that  which  has  been 
confined  to  Christian  nations.  "  Where,"  it  may  be 
asked,  "  is  the  brilliant  monarchy  of  Haroun  Alras- 
chid?  How  ephemeral  was  it  as  compared  even  with 
that  old  Byzantine  empire  into  whose  frame  Christian 
ity  had  infused  a  new  life  under  the  very  ribs  of  death ; 
a  life  which  the  fatal  bequest  of  Roman  despotism,  ex 
tending  itself  to  the  Church  as  well  as  to  the  state, 
could  scarcely  quench,  and  which,  through  ages  of  Mo- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  339 

hammedan  oppression,  has  smouldered  on  beneath  the 
ashes,  to  burst  out  again  in  reviving  Greece.  Even  in 
the  Moorish  communities  of  Spain,  the  flower,  as  they 
were,  of  Mohammedan  civilization,  internal  corruption 
had  prepared  the  way  for  the  conquering  arms  of  Fer 
dinand  and  Isabella.  Mohammedanism,  however,  what 
ever  the  degree  of  progressive  energy  displayed  by  it 
may  have  been,  was  not  a  separate  and  independent  re 
ligion,  but  a  debased  offspring  of  Judaism  and  Chris 
tianity.  Turning  to  the  remoter  East,  we  find  that  its 
history  has  not  been  a  history  of  progress,  but  of  the 
successive  descents  of  conquering  races  from  the  more 
bracing  climate  of  the  North,  subjugating  the  languid 
inhabitants  of  the  plains,  and  founding  a  succession  of 
empires,  sometimes  mighty  and  gorgeous,  but  always 
barren  of  nobler  fruits,  which,  when  the  physical  energy 
of  the  conquering  race  was  spent  in  its  turn,  at  once 
fell  .into  decay.  China  advanced  at  an  early  period  to 
a  certain  point  of  material  civilization,  but,  having 
reached  that  point,  she  became  a  by-word  of  immobil 
ity,  as  Egypt,  the  ancient  China,  was  in  a  former  day. 
The  civilization  of  Mexico  is  deplored  by  certain  philos 
ophers,  who  seem  to  think  that,  had  its  career  not  been 
cut  short  by  Spanish  conquest,  it  might  have  attained 
to  a  great  height,  and  confirmed  their  views  of  history. 
But  what  reason  is  there  to  think  that  Mexico  would 
ever  have  advanced  beyond  great  buildings  created  by 
slave  labor,  human  sacrifices,  and  abominable  vices  ?"* 
But  need  I  attempt  to  prove  that  Christianity  is  con 
nected  with  the  progress  of  the  race ;  that  it  originates 
much  that  is  connected  with  that  progress ;  that  it  at 
taches  itself  to  all  that  is  connected  with  progress? 
Look  at  the  press.  If  Christianity  did  not  originate  the 
*  Lectures  on  the  Study  of  History,  by  Goldwin  Smith,  p.  121,  123. 


340  LECTURES    ON   THE 

discovery  of  the  art  of  printing,  yet  that  discovery  was 
not  made  in  China,  where  it  might  have  been  supposed 
it  would  have  been ;  where,  from  time  immemorial,  they 
had  the  art  of  printing  solid  pages  from  solid  blocks  of 
wood,  and  where  all  that  was  necessary  to  complete  the 
art  was  to  saw  their  blocks  into  separate  letters — and 
yet  Chinese  genius  was  exhausted  when  it  had  invented 
the  block;  Chinese  stolidity  arrested  the  progress  there, 
and  left  the  invention  to  be  stricken  out,  as  God  intend 
ed  it  should  be,  in  connection  with  the  Christian  relig 
ion.  If,  too,  the  Bible  was  not  the  first  book  that  was 
printed,  it  was  one  of  the  first ;  and  it  has  been,  and 
is  even  now,  the  book  most  frequently  printed  since. 
Look  at  a  missionary  ship.  The  missionary  himself 
goes  as  among  the  best  representatives  of  Christian 
lands,  and  of  the  highest  form  of  Christian  civiliza 
tion — trained  in  Christian  civilization,  educated  in  the 
best  schools,  imbued  with  the  best  forms  of  learning,  in 
structed  in  science  and  the  arts.  We  know  what  he 
will  take  with  him  to  the  benighted  lands  to  which  he 
goes — the  press,  the  telescope,  the  quadrant,  the  com 
pass.  We  know  what  he  will  do  when  he  gets  there. 
He  will  set  up  the  press ;  he  will  create  a  written  lan 
guage  if  there  be  not  one  existing;  he  will  open  a 
school ;  he  will  found  a  college ;  he  will  introduce  the 
arts  of  life ;  he  will  preach  the  Gospel — the  source  of 
all  that  which  has  transformed  Huns,  and  Vandals,  and 
Goths,  and  Saxons,  and  Celts  into  the  civilized  nations 
of  Europe,  and  which  has  made  Germany,  and  France, 
and  Holland,  and  England,  and  Scotland,  and  our  own 
land,  what  they  are.* 

*  For  a  farther  and  a  more  full  illustration  of  the  subject,  going  into 
details  which  the  time  would  not  permit  in  this  Lecture,  I  may  refer 
to  the  Lectures  on  the  Study  of  History,  by  Coldwin  Smith,  p.  146- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  341 

I  have  not  exhausted  this  subject.  I  have  scarcely 
entered  on  it. 

I  might  dwell  on  the  argument  derived  from  the  fact 
that  the  Gospel  does  not,  like  other  religions,  become 
effete,  obsolete,  and  die  out ;  that  it  imparts  peace  and 
comfort  to  the  sorrowing  and  the  sad — an  arrangement 
in  its  very  nature  based  on  the  idea  that  man  is  a  suf 
ferer;  that  it  gives  peace  to  the  troubled  conscience — 
an  arrangement  also  in  its  very  nature  based  on  the 
idea  that  man  is  a  sinner,  and  that  the  consciousness  of 
sin  gives  a  peculiar  form  of  distress  to  the  soul ;  and 
that  it  gives  peace  in  the  hour  of  death — an  arrange 
ment  also  in  its  very  nature  based  on  the  idea  that  man 
must  die — lighting  up  the  dark  valley,  and  taking  away 
its  "  sting"  from  death,  and  its  "  victory"  from  the  grave. 

But  there  is  one  point  involving  the  necessity  of  so 
much  illustration  that  it  can  not  be  entered  on  now,  and 
yet  which  is  so  essential  to  the  argument  that  it  could 
not  be  made  complete  without  it.  It  is  the  relation  of 
Christianity  to  the  present  stage  of  the  world's  prog 
ress  in  science,  civilization,  and  the  arts.  That  point 
will  be  reserved  for  the  next,  the  closing  Lecture. 

Meantime,  the  inference  which  I  would  wish  to  draw 
from  the  argument  presented  this  evening  is,  that  such 
a  religion  must  be  from  God. 

This  is  an  argument  which  we  may  use  now,  but 
which  the  apostles  could  not  have  used,  and  which 
could  not  have  been  employed  by  the  early  "  apologists" 
for  Christianity  as  it  can  be  now.  The  experiment  as 
to  the  actual  adaptation  of  the  scheme  to  the  wants  of 
man  had  not  then  been  made.  With  them  it  was  main 
ly  theory,  and  there  was  as  yet  no  experience  to  which 

156.   I  may  also  refer,  for  general  illustrations  of  the  whole  subject,  to 
Lecky  on  the  History  of  Rationalism  in  Europe,  vol.  ii.,  p.  222-  357. 


342  LECTURES    ON   THE 

they  could  appeal.  With  all  that  could  be  alleged  from 
miracles,  and  prophecy,  and  the  character  of  the  Found 
er  of  the  system,  and  the  evidence  of  his  resurrection 
from  the  dead  and  of  his  ascension  to  heaven,  still  it 
might  be  said  that  its  adaptation  to  the  real  wants  of 
man  as  a  creature  and  a  sinner  had  not  then  been  tried. 
Who  could  tell  whether,  in  the  more  advanced  pe 
riods  of  the  world's  history;  in  the  changes  which 
would  be  made  in  human  affairs ;  in  the  development 
of  the  powers  of  man  in  the  future ;  in  the  progress  in 
science  and  in  the  arts  which  the  world  would  make 
in  future  ages,  this  religion,  with  all  that  seemed  to 
them  to  be  fitted  to  the  wants  of  man,  might  not  show 
itself  insufficient  to  meet  those  wants,  and  pass  into 
forgetfulness,  as  many  systems  of  philosophy  had  then 
done,  and  as  most  of  the  religions  of  the  world  were 
then  doing  ?  Who,  without  the  gift  of  prophecy,  could 
then  tell  whether  this  religion  would  be  found  to  be 
so  adapted  to  the  nature  of  man  as  to  meet  him  with 
what  would  be  needful  in  these  new  situations,  and  still 
maintain  its  position  in  advance  of  all  that  philosophy, 
science,  and  art  could  do  for  him  ? 

We  now  are  in  a  situation  to  answer  these  questions. 

Eighteen  hundred  years  have  passed  away,  and  they 
have  been  such  in  the  changes  occurring  in  society ;  in 
the  progress  of  the  race;  in  the  developments  of  the 
human  powers,  that  it  maybe  assumed  that  if  the  relig 
ion  has  been  found  to  be  adapted  to  the  wants  of  man 
in  those  eighteen  centuries,  it  will  in  all  the  centuries 
to  come. 

The  sum  of  what  I  have  said  in  this  argument  is  this : 
That  the  system  of  Christianity  is  based  on  a  profound- 
erview  of  human  nature,  and  of  the  wants  of  man,  than 
has  been  taken  in  any  other  system  of  religion,  or  than 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  343 

in  any  system  of  philosophy;  that  the  arrangements 
which  have  been  disclosed  in  the  system  are  such  as 
man  would  make  if  he  had  the  wisdom  and  the  power 
to  make  them  himself— such  as  he  has  been  struggling 
for  and  panting  for  in  all  ages,  and  all  over  the  world ; 
that  these  arrangements  are,  for  the  most  part,  wholly 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  native  powers  of  man — involv 
ing  the  necessity  of  an  atonement  for  sin  which  man 
could  not  make ;  anticipating  the  wants  of  our  nature 
in  every  new  age  of  the  world,  and  in  every  new  phase 
of  society ;  keeping  up  with  the  world  in  its  progress, 
and  still  in  advance  of  it — in  the  fact  that  unnumbered 
millions  of  the  race,  in  all  situations  and  ranks,  have 
found  in  it  an  answer  to  the  questions  which  men  so 
naturally  and  properly  ask  about  God  and  eternal 
things ;  in  the  fact  that  it  has  given  peace  in  hundreds 
of  millions  of  instances  to  consciences  troubled  by  sin ; 
in  its  influence  on  society — on  woman,  on  slavery,  on 
domestic  comfort,  on  the  arts  of  life,  on  liberty,  on  gov 
ernments  and  laws,  on  habits,  manners,  and  customs ;  in 
the  fact  that  it  has,  from  numberless  eyes,  wiped  away 
the  tears  of  sorrow,  and  that  it  has  given  support, 
peace,  triumph  in  hundreds  of  millions  of  cases  on  the 
bed  of  death.  Perhaps  I  might  have  made  the  argu 
ment  much  shorter.  I  might  have  staked  all  on  this 
one  point — as  I  do  now — A  RELIGION  THAT  WILL  PRE 
PARE  A  SINFUL  MAN  TO  DIE,  AND  THAT  WILL  GIVE  PEACE 
ON  A  DYING  BED,  MUST  BE  FROM  GOD. 


344  LECTURES    ON   THE 


LECTURE  X. 

THE  RELATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY  TO  THE  WORLD'S  PROG 
RESS  IN  SCIENCE,  CIVILIZATION,  AND  THE  ARTS  IN 
THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 

IT  has  been  remarked  that  "  a  system  which  would 
unite  in  one  sublime  synthesis  all  the  past  forms  of  hu 
man  belief,  which  accepts  with  triumphant  alacrity 
each  new  development  of  science,  having  no  stereo 
typed  standard  to  defend,  and  which  represents  the  hu 
man  mind  as  pursuing  on  the  highest  subjects  a  path 
of  continual  progress  toward  the  fullest  and  most  trans 
cendent  knowledge  of  the  Deity,  can  never  fail  to  exer 
cise  a  powerful  intellectual  attraction."* 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  human  mind  desires  such 
a  system  of  religion ;  that  it  is  endeavoring,  in  this  age, 
in  an  eminent  degree,  to  find  it ;  that  it  will  not  be  sat 
isfied  without  such  a  system.  In  other  words,  it  is  un 
doubtedly  true  that  a  system  of  professedly  revealed 
truth  will  not  be  received  permanently  by  mankind  un 
less  it  accords  with  this  desire  of  the  mind ;  unless  it 
welcomes  every  new  discovery  in  science,  and  each  new 
invention  in  the  arts ;  and  unless  it  attaches  itself  to 
every  thing  that  goes  into  the  real  civilization  and 
progress  of  the  world.  To  find,  or  to  found  such  a  sys 
tem,  is  the  present  effort  of  Rationalism,  and  it  is  a  fair 
question  whether  Christianity  so  meets  and  satisfies 
this  demand  of  the  human  mind  that  it  will  continue  to 
keep  its  place  as  the  world  makes  advances. 

*  History  of  Rationalism  in  Europe,  by  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  vol.  i.,  p. 
182. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  345 

The  closing  Lecture  in  this  course  will  be  designed, 
in  some  measure,  to  answer  this  question — a  question 
which  the  world  has  a  right  to  ask,  and  which  we  are 
bound  to  answer — a  question  on  the  solution  of  which 
the  reception  of  what  is  otherwise  adduced  as  evidence 
of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Christian  religion  will  in  a 
very  material  degree  depend.  The  argument  in  the 
Lecture  will  be  founded  on  the  idea  that  a  system  orig 
inated  long  since — eighteen  hundred  years  ago — which 
will  meet  the  condition  of  all  future  ages ;  which  began 
ahead  of  the  world,  and  which  keeps  itself  abreast  or 
ahead  of  the  world,  must  be  from  God.  It  is  capable 
of  easy  demonstration  that  there  is  no  such  system  un 
less  it  be  Christianity. 

It  was  assumed,  of  necessity,  by  Christianity,  that  it 
had  truths  to  disclose  of  great  importance  to  mankind, 
which  the  race,  at  the  time  when  it  was  revealed,  had 
been  unable  to  discover.*  Man  had,  indeed,  made  great 
progress  in  science,  in  civilization,  and  in  art.  The  best 
talent  in  the  world  had  been  employed  in  investigating 
the  works  of  nature,  and  in  inquiring  into  the  relations 
of  man  to  the  Creator  and  to  another  state  of  being. 
When  Paul  stood  on  Mars'  Hill,  he  was,  in  respect  to  all 
that  contributes  to  human  comfort,  and  that  marks  the 
progress  of  the  race,  almost  in  a  different  world  from 
what  one  would  have  been  in  the  rude  age  of  Tubal 
Cain,  Jabal,  and  Jubal.  A  period  of  four  thousand  years 
had  elapsed  since  the  creation,  and  all  that  man  had  ac 
cumulated  on  the  subjects  of  religion,  philosophy,  and 
the  arts  had  culminated  in  Greece,  and  was  represented 
by  the  objects  around  him,  and  by  the  men  that  stood 
before  him.  The  experiment,  continued  for  so  long  a 
time,  and  under  such  circumstances,  whether  man  could 
*  1  Cor.,  i.,  2. 
P2 


34G  LECTURES    OX    THE 

find  out  the  knowledge  of  God  and  a  way  of  salvation, 
might  be  regarded  as  having  been  fairly  made.  If  it 
had  been  submitted  to  man  himself  to  designate  a  suffi 
cient  time  to  make  the  experiment,  he  himself  would 
admit  that  four  thousand  years  must  be  regarded  as 
ample  for  the  trial ;  if  it  were  submitted  to  him  to  se 
lect  the  circumstances  under  which  the  trial  could  best 
be  made,  he  could  hardly  imagine,  as  I  have  endeavored 
to  show  in  a  former  Lecture,  that  the  trial  could  have 
been  better  made  than  in  Greece.  Yet,  after  that  ex 
periment  had  been  thus  made,  the  Gospel  claimed  to 
have  truths  indispensable  to  mankind  far  in  advance 
of  all  that  man  had  been  able  to  discover,  and  which  it 
was  assumed  could  not  be  discovered  by  the  unaided 
human  powers.  The  fact  that  it  had  such  truths,  and 
that  it  answered  questions  which  had  been  propounded 
by  Greek  philosophers,  but  for  which  no  answer  had 
been  found,  will  not  be  disputed  even  by  those  who  en 
deavor  to  explain  the  Gospel  on  some  other  supposition 
than  that  it  is  a  revelation  from  heaven.  It  is  claimed 
to  be  a  fact  by  all  who  believe  that  Christianity  is  a 
revelation  from  God;  it  is  shown  to  be  a  fact  by  the 
progress  which  the  race  has  made  under  that  new  sys 
tem  as  compared  with  its  progress  under  the  influence 
of  the  Grecian  philosophy. 

Eighteen  hundred  years  have  passed  away,  and  dur 
ing  that  period  the  race,  in  science,  civilization,  and  the 
arts,  has  made  advances  far  more  rapid  than  in  any 
eighteen  centuries  before,  or  than  in  all  those  four 
thousand  years.  The  world  is,  in  most  important  re 
spects,  a  different  world  from  what  it  was  in  the  days 
of  Pericles  and  Plato.  The  telescope  has  extended  its 
boundaries  indefinitely  in  one  direction,  and  the  micro 
scope  in  the  other.  Science  is  a  different  thing  now 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  347 

from  what  it  was  then ;  civilization  is  different ;  art  is 
different.  Our  houses  are  different ;  our  domestic  ar 
rangements  are  different ;  our  facilities  for  passing  from 
place  to  place,  by  land  or  sea,  are  different ;  our  knowl 
edge  of  distant  lands  and  oceans  is  different;  our  means 
of  recording,  transmitting,  and  perpetuating  truth  are 
different ;  our  knowledge  of  the  substances  which  com 
pose  our  globe  is  different;  our  knowledge  of  the 
world's  history  before  man  appeared  on  it  is  different ; 
our  means  of  cultivating  the  fields,  and  of  conducting 
the  operations  of  commerce,  are  different.  Except  in 
architecture  and  sculpture,  there  is  nothing  in  respect 
to  which  the  world  is  not  now  immeasurably  in  ad 
vance  of  what  it  was  in  the  best  days  of  Greece.  A 
Greek  of  the  age  of  Pericles  would  be  lost  now  in  the 
arrangements  of  civilization  around  him,  not  less  than 
one  of  the  age  of  Tubal  Cain  would  have  been  if  sud 
denly  translated  to  Athens.  We  use  no  Greek  plows 
in  our  fields ;  no  Greek  chariots  in  our  wars  or  on  our 
journeys;  no  Greek  implements  in  preparing  our  food, 
in  writing  our  books,  in  transmitting  intelligence  from 
place  to  place ;  no  Greek  weapons  of  war ;  no  Greek 
ships  in  battle.  We  make  no  use  in  our  schools  of 
their  treatises  on  natural  history,  astronomy,  medicine, 
scarcely  in  mental  philosophy;  nor  do  we  copy  their 
style  of  domestic  architecture,  or  refer  to  them  for  in 
struction  in  the  mechanic  arts.  We  are  in  a  different 
world  from  what  the  ancient  Greek  was,  and  it  might 
be  interesting  to  speculate  how  long  it  would  take  Per 
icles  or  Plato  to  learn  to  act,  and  move,  and  speak,  and 
live  in  our  age. 

It  is  a  fair  question  whether,  admitting  that  Chris 
tianity  was  in  advance  of  the  world  at  the  time  when 
it  was  communicated  to  men,  it  still  holds  the  same 


348  LECTURES    ON   THE 

relative  position?  Is  it  still  ahead  of  the  world?  Is  it 
abreast  of  it  ?  Or  has  it  fallen  in  the  rear  ?  Has  it 
been  superseded  by  the  discoveries  which  men  have 
made  in  science ;  by  the  progress  of  civilization ;  by  the 
advances  in  the  arts  ?  Has  the  world  reached  a  point 
where  it  can  "  get  along"  without  the  Gospel  ?  Have 
the  powers  of  the  human  mind  been  so  developed  dur 
ing  these  eighteen  hundred  years  that  man  can  now  suc 
cessfully  grapple  with  questions  which  were  too  difficult 
for  even  the  cultivated  mind  of  Greece ;  and  have  the 
secrets  of  nature  been  so  explored  that  the  knowledge 
which  she  has  to  impart  to  man,  and  which  eluded  the 
inquiries  in  the  academy,  the  porch,  or  the  lyceum,  can 
now  be  found  in  the  laboratory  or  the  observatory? 
Or,  to  put  the  question  in  a  form  more  favorable  to 
Christianity,  and  in  a  form  in  which  its  friends  would 
demand  that  it  should  be  put :  Has  Christianity  itself 
been  an  important  element  in  the  progress  which  the 
race  has  made,  and  are  the  institutions  of  the  present 
time — the  forms  of  civilization,  the  advances  in  the  arts 
and  the  comforts  of  life,  to  be  traced  so  far  to  Christian 
ity  that  it  may  claim  that  it  has  been  among  the  direct 
causes  in  effecting  these  changes  ?  If  it  be  assumed  or 
conceded  that  this  is  so,  then,  also,  it  may  be  fairly 
asked  whether  it  has  not  done  its  work,  and  may  not 
now  be  dispensed  with  in  the  farther  progress  of  the 
race,  and  whether  it  is  not  now  to  take  its  place  with 
the  systems  adapted  to  a  ruder  age,  which  passed  away 
Avhen  the  results  had  become  incorporated  in  permanent 
institutions,  or  when  they  had  been  superseded  by  bet 
ter  systems. 

These  are  questions  which  would  be  suggested  by 
certain  forms  of  skepticism  different  from  those  of  an 
cient  times,  but  Avhich  are  likely  to  become  the  forms 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  349 

of  unbelief  in  the  coming  age.  They  are  not  questions 
which  would  have  occurred  in  the  times  of  Celsus,  Por 
phyry,  or  Julian;  they  are  not  the  questions  which 
Hobbes,  and  Chubb,  and  Shaftesbury,  and  Bolingbroke 
would  have  asked,  but  they  are  questions  which  lie  at 
the  foundation  of  the  whole  system  of  Rationalism  at 
the  present  day. 

There  is  another  question,  also,  as  suggested  by  these 
remarks,  which  may  be  asked  from  a  Christian  point  of 
view.  Assuming,  as  the  defender  of  Christianity  must, 
that  Christianity  was  ahead  of  the  world  at  the  time 
when  the  revelation  was  made,  and  that  in  its  doctrines 
it  still  holds  the  same  relative  position,  it  is  a  fair  ques 
tion  whether,  in  respect  to  its  means  of  perpetuity  and 
propagation,  it  still  maintains  the  same  relative  posi 
tion,  or  whether  the  apostles  had  advantages  in  this  re 
spect  which  the  Church  has  not  now,  or  which  could 
not  be  employed  with  success  in  the  present  condition 
of  the  world.  All  history  has  united  in  the  record  of  a 
very  rapid  diffusion  of  the  Gospel  in  the  times  of  the 
apostles;  it  has  described  the  means  which  were  em 
ployed,  and  which  were  then  successful;  it  has  deliv 
ered  such  an  unmistakable  testimony  on  the  subject 
that  it  required  all  the  powers  of  Mr.  Gibbon  to  furnish 
a  philosophical  explanation  of  the  fact  of  its  propaga 
tion  on  the  supposition  that  the  Gospel  is  an  imposture. 
But  is  it  true  that  the  Church  in  this  age,  in  view  of 
the  present  stage  of  the  world  in  civilization,  in  science, 
and  the  arts,  can  engage  in  propagating  the  system 
under  circnmstances  as  favorable  to  success  as  were 
those  which  existed  in  the  times  of  the  apostles  ? 

These,  indeed,  are  not  the  same  questions,  but  they 
are  in  the  same  line,  and  are  alike  suggested  by  the  re 
lation  of  Christianity  to  the  present  age.  It  may  be 


350  LECTURES    ON   THE 

f. 

difficult  to  furnish  an  answer  to  both  in  the  same  argu 
ment,  but  perhaps  the  considerations  suggested  in  rela 
tion  to  the  one  will  involve  all  that  is  demanded  in  the 
other. 

I  propose,  in  the  conclusion  of  these  Lectures,  to  con 
sider  the  question  with  reference  to  an  argument  for 
the  truth  of  Christianity,  and  as  a  continuation  of  the 
course  of  thought  in  the  last  Lecture  on  the  adapted- 
ness  of  Christianity  to  the  wants  of  man. 

The  points  necessary  to  be  considered,  in  order  to 
a  proper  elucidation  of  the  subject,  are,  the  fact  that 
Christianity,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  is  a  fixed 
and  unchangeable  system,  or  that  it  makes  no  progress 
from  age  to  age;  the  fact  that,  while  Christianity  is 
thus  fixed  and  stationary,  the  world  does  make  progress 
in  science,  civilization,  and  the  arts ;  the  fact  that,  in 
the  circumstances  of  the  case,  they  unavoidably  come 
into  collision  with  each  other ;  the  inquiry  on  what  sub 
jects  they  are  likely  to  come  into  collision  now  as  com 
pared  with  former  ages ;  the  present  relation  of  the  one 
to  the  other ;  and  the  inquiry  how  far  an  argument  may 
be  derived  from  this  view  in  favor  of  the  divine  origin 
of  the  Christian  system. 

I.  The  first  point  is  that  Christianity,  from  the  nature 
of  the  case,  is  a  fixed  and  unchanging  system.  It  makes 
no  progress  in  the  disclosure  of  doctrines  to  be  be 
lieved  ;  it  was  perfect  as  a  system  of  redemption  when 
the  Redeemer  died,  rose,  and  ascended  to  heaven ;  it 
was  complete  as  a  system  to  be  explained  and  under 
stood  when  the  volume  of  revealed  truth  was  finished 
on  the  island  of  Patmos.  'No  new  facts  were  to  be 
added  to  the  record ;  no  new  doctrines  were  to  be  re 
vealed;  no  changes  were  to  be  made  to  adjust  it  to  a 
future  condition  of  the  world;  nor  were  the  doctrines 


EVIDENCES    OF  CHRISTIANITY.  351 

to  be  modified  to  adapt  them  to  new  views  in  science 
or  philosophy.  The  system  for  all  time  to  come  is  to 
be  found  in  the  New  Testament ;  and  the  system,  when 
the  last  record  was  made  there,  was  precisely  what  it 
will  be  in  the  last  and  most  cultivated  periods  of  the 
world.  The  work  was  ended  when  that  volume  was 
completed,  for  man  then  had  all  that  he  ever  would 
have  as  constituting  the  record  of  Christianity.  No 
new  books  were  to  be  added ;  no  new  prophets  or  apos 
tles  were  to  be  sent ;  no  additional  work  was  to  be  done 
to  supplement  the  atonement.  Whatever  consequences 
may  follow  from  this  position,  the  defender  of  Chris 
tianity  is  bound  to  maintain  it,  and,  in  the  utmost 
strictness  of  the  expression,  the  enemy  of  Christianity 
may  hold  him  to  it. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  argue  this  point,  for  it  springs 
out  of  the  very  nature  of  the  system.  It  is,  moreover, 
fairly  implied  in  the  New  Testament  itself.  I  believe 
that  the  Book  of  Revelation  was  the  last  book  of  the 
New  Testament  that  was  written,  and  that  it  occupies 
its  appropriate  place  as  the  closing  book  in  the  revela 
tion  of  God  to  mankind ;  and  that,  although  the  solemn 
passage  with  which  that  book  closes  undoubtedly  had 
immediate  reference  to  the  book  itself,  yet  that  it  is  not 
improper  to  regard  it  as  applicable  to  the  entire  Bible : 
"I  testify  unto  every  man  that  heareth  the  words  of 
the  prophecy  of  this  book,  If  any  man  shall  add  unto 
these  things,  God  shall  add  unto  him  the  plagues  that 
are  written  in  this  book :  and  if  any  man  shall  take 
away  from  the  words  of  the  book  of  this  prophecy,  God 
shall  take  away  his  part  out  of  the  book  of  life"  (Rev., 
xxii.,  18,  19). 

If  this  is  a  true  position,  the  defender  of  the  Christian 
system  can  not,  as  is  done  in  other  systems,  avail  him- 


352  LECTURES    ON   THE 

self  of  the  progress  which  the  world  makes  to  relieve 
himself  of  difficulty,  and  to  adjust  the  system  to  new 
discoveries  and  inventions.  A  system  of  astronomy,  of 
chemistry,  of  anatomy,  or  of  geography,  may  be  adjust 
ed  from  age  to  age.  Erroneous  views  long  entertained 
in  regard  to  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  or  the  move 
ments  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  or  the  elementary  sub 
stances  of  nature,  may  be  detached  from  the  system, 
and  the  new  views  made  to  occupy  their  place,  though 
it  may  require  that  long-cherished  and  honored  systems 
shall  be  abandoned,  and  names  long  regarded  with  rev 
erence  shall  cease  to  be  among  those  which  influence 
mankind.  Such  has  been,  in  fact,  the  progress  of  the 
sciences ;  nor  is  there  any  one  science  that  can  now  be 
regarded  as  so  fixed  that  it  may  not  be  modified  or  rev 
olutionized  by  new  discoveries.  If  a  fact  is  discovered 
that  is  at  variance  entirely  with  a  prevailing  theory  of 
astronomy,  anatomy,  or  chemistry,  it  is  not  fatal  to  the 
science  itself.  The  system  may  be  at  once  adjusted  to 
the  new  fact,  and  the  change  constitute  an  epoch  in  the 
advance  of  the  science.  Not  so,  however,  in  regard  to 
the  Bible  and  to  the  Christian  system.  If  the  world  in 
its  progress  discloses  facts  that  are  irreconcilable  with 
the  Bible  on  just  principles  of  interpretation,  it  is  fatal 
to  its  claim  as  a  revelation  from  God.  We  can  not  go 
ba^k,  as  in  the  case  of  astronomy,  and  adjust  the  his 
torical  or  doctrinal  statement  in  the  Bible  to  the  new 
discoveries. 

It  follows  from  these  views  (a)  that  the  proper  work 
of  man  in  regard  to  Christianity  is  to  ascertain,  by  a 
fair  interpretation  of  language,  what  the  system  is, 
not  what  it  should  be.  The  work  of  the  Christian  the 
ologian  is  to  sit  down  to  the  New  Testament  simply  as 
an  interpreter  of  language,  as  the  learner  in  science  sits 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  353 

down  to  the  study  of  the  works  of  nature,  to  learn  what 
nature  «s,  not  to  determine  what  it  should  be ;  to  ex 
plain  a  world,  not  to  make  a  world.  The  principle  sug 
gested  by  Lord  Bacon  in  the  first  maxim  of  the  Novum 
Organon*  is  as  applicable  to  Christianity  as  it  is  to 
nature,  and  lies  as  certainly  at  the  foundation  of  all  just 
views  of  theology  as  it  does  of  all  just  views  of  science. 
By  the  proper  study  of  language,  according  to  the  re 
ceived  laws  of  exegesis  among  men,  the  theologian  is  to 
ascertain  what  the  system  is,  and,  having  done  that,  his 
work  is  ended.  (f>)  It  follows,  farther,  that  the  friend 
of  revelation  is  not  at  liberty  to  modify  the  system ;  to 
accommodate  it  to  prevailing  theories  in  philosophy; 
or  to  adjust  it  to  new  facts  as  they  shall  develop  them 
selves  in  the  progress  of  human  affairs.  No  power  can 
change  the  system  but  the  power  which  originated  it ; 
and  the  authority  to  modify  it  so  as  to  adjust  it  to  hu 
man  belief,  or  to  facts  as  they  are  developed  in  science, 
ha&  not  been  intrusted  to  mortals.  Truth  is  unaccom 
modating  and  unbending.  It  will  not  yield.  It  can 
not  be  made  different  at  one  time  from  what  it  is  at  an 
other.  The  proposition  that  in  a  right  angled  triangle 
the  square  of  the  hypothenuse  is  equal  to  the  sum  of 
the  squares  on  the  two  sides,  is  a  truth  not  peculiar  to 
one  age  or  nation ;  nor  to  be  expressed  in  one  language 
only ;  nor  to  die  away  among  obsolete  maxims  in  the 
advancing  periods  of  fhe  world ;  nor  to  be  modified  or 
changed  though  truths  of  surpassing  magnitude  on 
other  subjects  are  disclosed  to  human  view;  nor  to  be 
treated  as  a  falsehood  though  there  may  be  theories  to 
be  established  that  may  seem  vital  to  science  or  to  the 

*  Homo,  naturae  minister  et  interpres,  tantum  facit  et  intelligit, 
quantum  de  naturae  ordine,  re  vel  mente  observaverit ;  nee  amplius 
scit,  aut  potest. 


354  LECTURES    ON   THE 

good  of  mankind.  So  the  Christian  theologian  is  bound 
to  believe  in  regard  to  revealed  truth ;  so  the  unbeliev 
ing  world  may  require,  in  regard  to  each  and  every  por 
tion  of  the  revealed  truth  of  God,  that  he  shall  hold  it 
precisely  as  it  is  in  the  Bible. 

There  are,  however,  one  or  two  remarks  which  may 
be  made,  to  show  that  this  rule  is  not  quite  as  rigid,  in 
its  actual  application,  as  it  may  seem  to  be.  In  another 
part  of  this  Lecture  I  shall  show  that,  in  fact,  the  rule 
is  as  rigid  and  stern  in  regard  to  science  as  it  is  in  re 
spect  to  theology. 

It  is  not  to  be  assumed,  then,  by  the  Christian  or  the 
infidel,  that  we  have  in  fact,  in  our  creeds  and  in  our 
interpretation  of  the  Bible,  precisely  the  system  which 
was  revealed.  That  we  have  the  true  record  in  the 
Bible  we  are  to  believe,  and  the  infidel  may  hold  us  to 
that;  but  that  we  have  the  proper  interpretation  of  that 
record  is  not  to  be  assumed  as  certain.  *Christianity 
has  been  transmitted  to  us  from  a  far-distant  age.  *It 
has  come"  in  contact  with  all  the  philosophical  systems 
in  the  world.  Its  outward  form  has  been  much  mould 
ed  by  philosophy — much  by  its  alliance  with  the  state. 
The  synods  and  councils  which  have  determined  the 
creeds  of  the  Church  have  been,  like  other  assemblies, 
composed  of  imperfect  men — often  of  men  more  under 
the  influence  of  philosophy  than  religion ;  often  igno 
rant  of  the  plainest  rules  of  exegesis ;  and  often  seeking 
rather  to  establish  a  hierarchy  than  to  promote  the 
kingdom  of  Christ.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  know  that 
during  that  long  period  there  is  almost  no  absurdity 
of  doctrine  or  interpretation  which  has  not  been  em 
braced  by  the  Church ;  almost  no  error  which  has  not 
been  sanctioned  by  synods  and  councils;  almost  no 
truth  the  belief  of  which  has  not  exposed  him  who  held 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  355 

it  to  persecution  by  the  Church  itself.  Christianity  has 
thus  come  down  to  us  through  a  descent  of  eighteen 
centuries,  collecting  in  its  progress  whatever  of  good 
or  bad  there  might  be  that  could  in  any  way  be  made 
to  adhere  to  it;  adopting  as  its  own  the  opinions  in 
mental  philosophy,  and  the  doctrines  of  science,  true  or 
false,  which  have  prevailed  in  the  world ;  and  uniting 
all  in  its  symbols  of  faith — taking  the  Church  at  large, 
a  vast  and  monstrous  conglomeration  of  original  sacred 
truth,  and  of  the  errors  and  absurdities  which  the  world 
has  accumulated  in  the  lapse  of  ages.  It  is  a  ship,  not 
now  just  sailing  out  of  port,  fresh,  and  new,  and  clean, 
but  one  that  has  sailed  afar,  and  that  has  collected  in 
distant  seas  whatever  of  barnacles  and  sea-weed  that 
could  be  made  to  adhere  to  it.  Those  barnacles  and 
that  sea-weed  must  be  detached  from  it  if  the  ship  is  to 
be  made  to  traverse  safely  distant  seas  again. 

A  great  part  of  the  work  of  the  Church  in  modern 
times  has  been  to  detach  from  it  the  errors  and  corrup 
tions  which  it  had  accumulated  in  the  long  period  of  its 
history.  This  was,  in  fact,  the  main  service  which  Lu 
ther  rendered  to  the  Church,  restoring  it  in  a  great 
measure  to  its  pristine  beauty,  purity,  and  vigor.  This 
is  the  service  which  has  been  rendered  by  modern  sa 
cred  criticism ;  this  is  the  work  to  be  done  by  the  ef 
forts  to  secure  a  correct  text  of  the  Bible;  this  the 
work  to  be  done  by  the  application  of  the  canons  of 
criticism  to  the  Word  of  God. 

Luther,  indeed,  performed  a  great  work ;  for  Chris 
tianity  in  the  Protestant  form  is  a  different  thing  from 
what  it  was  as  it  had  been  presented  to  the  world  for  a 
thousand  years.  But  we  are  not  to  assume  that  the 
work  was  wholly  done  by  him,  or  that  in  the  Westmin 
ster,  the  Helvetic,  and  the  Savoy  Confessions,  in  the 


356  LECTURES    ON   THE 

Thirty-nine  Articles,  or  in  the  Heidelberg  Catechism, 
we  have  Christianity  precisely  as  its  Author  designed 
to  communicate  it  to  mankind.  We  are  not  to  assume 
that  all  the  received  views  in  the  Church  are  true 
views,  and  are  in  no  manner  to  be  modified.  We  are 
not  to  assume  that  the  texts  of  Scripture  which  the 
Westminster  Assembly  affixed  to  the  Larger  and  Short 
er  Catechisms  are  all  properly  applied,  and  are  to  be 
held  as  proof-texts  now  in  order  to  "  soundness  in  the 
faith,"  or  that  the  doctrines  which  they  are  designed 
to  defend  are,  in  fact,  doctrines  of  the  Scripture  at  all. 
We  are  not  to  assume  that  the  views  held  in  the 
Church,  even  to  our  own  times,  in  regard  to  the  past 
records  of  our  earth,  or  the  interpretations  which,  in 
defense  of  those  views,  the  Church  has  attached  to  cer 
tain  statements  in  the  Bible,  are  therefore  correct.  It 
is  not  to  be  held  that  the  past  interpretations  of  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis  are  necessarily  true ;  nor  are  we 
to  assume  that  the  pastor  of  the  Church  in  Leyden  was 
in  error  when  he  said  that  "  God  had  yet  many  more 
truths  to  break  forth  out  of  his  holy  word." 

All  this  is  matter  of  fair  inquiry  still ;  and  when  a 
new  fact  is  discovered  in  science  that  seems  to  come  in 
conflict  with  a  statement  in  the  Bible,  or  when  an  old 
record  in  Egypt  is  deciphered,  or  a  new  bone  is  ex 
humed  in  fossil  remains,  that  seems  to  carry  the  history 
of  man  back  to  a  remoter  period  than  that  assigned  by 
Usher,  we  are  at  perfect  liberty  to  inquire  whether  the 
common  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  though  received 
for  ages,  is  the  correct  interpretation ;  whether,  as  in 
the  case  of  astronomy  in  the  time  of  Galileo,  the  Church 
has  not  been  mistaken  in  its  views  on  the  subject ;  and 
whether  the  Bible,  by  the  fair  rules  of  exegesis,  may 
not  be  capable  of  being  reconciled  with  the  new  discov- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  357 

ery  in  science,  or  with  the  new  historical  fact  that  has 
been  disclosed  to  the  world.  This  "play"  therefore, 
if  I  may  thus  express  myself,*  is  open  to  the  friends 
of  Christianity,  while  the  statement  is  still  held  true 
in  its  most  rigid  form  that,  in  itself,  it  is  a  fixed 
and  unchangeable  system,  incapable  of  progress  or 
change. 

II.  While  Christianity  is  thus  fixed  and  unchange 
able,  the  world  makes  progress  in  science,  civilization, 
and  the  arts.  It  is  bound  by  no  such  rigid  laws  as 
those  which  pertain  to  an  unchangeable  system;  it 
holds  no  theory  in  philosophy,  and  no  creed  in  regard 
to  the  sciences,  which  may  not  be  modified  and  adjust 
ed  to  the  highest  advances  which  the  race  can  make. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  world  makes  progress.  It 
drops  erroneous  systems  by  the  way.  It  readily  incor 
porates  new  facts  into  the  systems  of  science.  The  old 
Ptolemaic  system,  not  without  a  struggle,  indeed,  gives 
way  to  the  Copernican  system  in  astronomy,  and  in  the 
new  system  there  is  no  difficulty,  without  changing  its 
character,  in  assigning  its  place  to  each  new  planet  that 
may  be  discovered ;  to  any  number  of  comets,  shooting 
stars,  and  asteroids ;  to  new  systems  of  worlds  lying 
beyond  our  own  planetary  system;  or  to  any  number 
of  nebula?  floating  in  the  distant  ether  that  may  be  now 
resolving  themselves  into  worlds.  There  is  nothing, 
therefore,  like  a  fixed  and  unchangeable  system  that 
seems  to  bind  the  race  in  its  career  of  discovery.  In 
science  man  seems  to  be  free ;  in  religion  he  seems  to 
be  a  fettered  slave. 

While  this  statement,  however,  is  made  in  regard  to 
science,  civilization,  and  the  arts,  it  is  important  to  un 
derstand  precisely  in  what  sense  it  is  true,  in  order  that 
*  "  The  ]>lay  of  a  wheel  or  piston." —  Webster. 


358  LECTURES    ON   THE 

we  may  appreciate  the  manner  in  which  one  comes  in 
collision  with  the  other. 

Science,  then,  in  itself,  in  the  highest  sense  of  that 
term,  is  as  really  fixed  and  unchangeable  as  Christian 
ity.  The  business  of  science  is  not  to  create,  it  is  to 
discover.  The  maxim  of  Lord  Bacon,  already  referred 
to,  represents  man  as  merely  the  "  minister  and  inter 
preter  of  nature."  The  student  of  nature  does  not  cre 
ate  the  truths  in  his  department  any  more  than  the  the 
ologian  does  in  his ;  nor-  is  he  any  more  at  liberty  to 
change  or  modify  the  facts  in  his  department  than  the 
student  of  the  Bible  is  in  his.  Moreover,  each  and  all 
the  sciences,  using  that  word  in  the  largest  sense,  save 
the  science  of  history,  were  in  themselves  as  perfect  and 
unchangeable  at  the  beginning  of  the  creation  as  they 
are  now,  and  the  struggles,  the  changes,  the  errors,  the 
advances,  the  stoppages,  the  modifications  recorded  in 
WhewelPs  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences  are  quite 
parallel  with  the  histojy  of  theological  science — with 
the  toils  of  plodding  theologians ;  with  the  delibera 
tions  of  synods  and  councils ;  with  the  breaking  out  of 
new  light  here  and  there,  overthrowing  old  systems  and 
creeds ;  with  the  struggles,  the  changes,  the  errors,  the 
advances,  the  stoppages,  the  modifications  in  develop 
ing  the  system  of  Christian  theology  as  it  now  exists  in 
its  best  forms.  A  treatise  on  any  one  of  the  sciences, 
if  correctly  prepared  at  the  beginning  of  the  world, 
would  be  a  correct  treatise  now,  just  as  a  creed  that 
would  have  fairly  represented  Christianity  when  the 
volume  of  inspiration  was  finished  would  be  a  correct 
creed  no.w.  There  are  no  new  truths;  no  new  facts; 
no  new  principles  that  have  been  introduced  in  the  one 
case  any  more  than  in  the  other.  A  correct  treatise  on 
astronomy,  for  example,  written  when  "the  morning 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  359 

stars  sang  together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for 
joy,"  or  when  the  Chaldsean  sages  looked  out  on  the 
heavens,  and  mapped  the  world  above  us  with  strange 
figures  and  forms,  would  be  a  correct  treatise  now.  The 
worlds  are  the  same ;  the  laws  of  their  movements  are 
the  same ;  their  magnitudes,  distances,  periods,  and  rev 
olutions  are  the  same.  Kepler  did  not  create  the  great 
laws,  the  discovery  of  which  has  given  immortality  to 
his  name ;  Galileo  did  not  bring  into  existence  the  sat 
ellites  of  Jupiter ;  nor  did  Newton  originate  the  prin 
ciple  of  universal  gravitation.  So  far  as  known,  no 
new  worlds  have  been  added  to  the  system;  so  far  as 
known,  no  worlds  have  been  certainly  destroyed — it  is 
absolutely  certain  that  no  modifications  have  occurred 
in  the  laws  by  which  the  system  is  governed. — A  trea 
tise  on  anatomy  in  the  time  of  Galen,  if  correct  then, 
would  be  perfect  now.  There  have  been  no  changes  in 
the  structure  of  man  that  would  demand  a  revision  or 
a  modification  of  the  system.  Not  one  new  bone  has 
been  added  to  the  human  frame ;  not  one  new  muscle, 
nerve,  or  tendon  has  been  laid  down;  not  one  new 
channel  has  been  grooved  out  for  the  flowing  of  the 
blood.  Had  Galen  given  to  the  world  a  true  theo 
ry  in  his  time  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  it  would 
have  been  as  correct  now  as  is  the  theory  of  Harvey. 
— A  treatise  on  chemistry  when,  under  the  Caliphate  at 
Bagdad,  the  followers  of  Mohammed  were  on  the  point 
of  such  great  discoveries,  would  be  a  correct  treatise 
now.  No  new  substances  have  been  added  to  the  sixty 
or  more  of  which  the  universe  is  composed,  nor  have 
there  been  any  new  laws  in  respect  to  the  proportions 
in  which  they  combine,  and  the  chemical  changes  which 
occur  in  the  air,  the  earth,  and  the  water. — The  treatises 
of  Solomon,  when  "  he  spake  of  trees  from  the  cedar-tree 


360  LECTUKES    ON   THE 

that  is  in  Lebanon  even  unto  the  hyssop  that  springeth 
out  of  the  wall,  and  of  beasts,  and  of  fowls,  and  of  creep 
ing  things,  and  of  fishes"  (l  Kings,  iv.,  33),  if  they  were 
correct  treatises  then,  and  stated  the  true  laws  in  his 
time  in  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  would  be 
correct  representations  in  natural  history  now,  and,  if 
they  had  been  preserved,  would  have  rendered  needless 
the  toils  of  LinnaBus,  BufFon,  Cuvier,  and  Agassiz. — The 
electric  fluid,  when  it  glittered  and  played  on  the  mast 
of  the  ancient  mariner,  was  the  same  that  it  is  now, 
when,  arrested  and  guided,  it  makes  its  way  over  hills 
and  plains,  and  along  the  bed  of  the  ocean,  conveying 
thought  from  land  to  land,  and  lighting  up  the  world 
with  intelligence. — In  like  manner,  a  system  of  metal 
lurgy  when  Tubal  Cain  became  the  "  instructor  of  every 
artificer  in  brass  and  iron"  (Gen.,  iv.,  22),  or  of  music  in 
the  time  of  Jubal,  "  the  father  of  all  such  as  handle  the 
harp  and  the  Organ"  (Gen.,  iv.,  21),  or  of  agriculture  in 
the  days  of  Jabal, "  the  father  of  such  as  dwell  in  tents, 
and  have  cattle"  (Gen.,  iv.,  20),  would  be  a  correct  sys 
tem  in  each  department  now.  The  instructions  of  the 
schools  have  added  nothing  to  the  principles  on  which 
the  metals  are  spread  over  the  earth,  nor  have  they  in 
creased  or  diminished  the  quantity.  Mozart  and  Han 
del  have  added  nothing  to  the  laws  of  the  octave,  nor 
has  Liebig  introduced  one  new  substance  as  entering 
into  scientific  agriculture,  or  modified  one  on  which 
success  depends. 

Yet,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word  science,  the 
world  does  make  progress,  and  in  reference  to  science 
as  known,  and  to  theories  which  are  regarded  as  just 
expositions  of  nature,  the  world  is  immeasurably  in  ad 
vance  of  what  it  was  when  the  Gospel  was  revealed  to 
mankind.  All  the  old  treatises  on  science  have  passed 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  361 

away.  They  are  valuable  now  only  as  marking  the 
progress  of  the  race,  and  as  enabling  us  to  compare  the 
present  with  the  past.  No  one  feels  bound  to  defend 
these  ancient  expositions  of  nature  as  the  Christian 
feels  bound  to  defend  the  ancient  records  of  his  faith  in 
the  Bible ;  no  one  is  charged  with  heresy  in  science  if 
he  discards  the  teachings  of  the  ancients  altogether. 
The  friend  of  science  is  free.  He  is  bound'  by  no  an 
cient  exposition  of  nature ;  nor  does  he  hesitate,  on  the 
discovery  of  a  new  fact  in  nature  —  in  astronomy,  in 
anatomy,  or  in  chemistry — to  lay  aside  at  once  all  that 
in  the  received  systems  is  inconsistent  with  that  fact, 
and  to  set  himself  at  work  to  adjust  the  system  to  that 
new  revelation.  He  does  not  create  the  fact,  and,  there 
fore,  he  does  not  create  the  science ;  he  modifies  the 
system  as  received  so  as  to  be  in  accordance  with  that 
fact,  and  allows  it  to  exert  its  full  influence  in  forming 
the  opinions  of  mankind  in  all  time  to  come.  He  dis 
covers,  he  does  not  make.  Columbus  discovered  Amer 
ica,  he  did  not  create  it,  and  the  fact  of  its  existence  was 
the  same  before  he  discovered  it  as  afterward,  and 
would  have  been  the  same  if  he  had  not  lived.  Adams 
and  Le  Verrier  indicated  the  place  of  an  unknown  plan 
et  in  the  heavens,  they  did  not  create  it.  Its  existence 
was  the  same  before  they  made  it  known  as  afterward, 
and  would  have  been  the  same  if  they  had  not  suggest 
ed  the  fact  of  its  existence  to  mankind.  From  the  be 
ginning  of  the  creation,  that  distant  star  had  walked  its 
rounds  on  perhaps  the  outer  limit  of  our  solar  system, 
unobserved  by  men  before,  but,  when  disclosed,  men 
forthwith  set  themselves  to  adjust  the  astronomical 
system  to  the  fact  that  there  was  such  a  star,  and  that 
its  movements  should  be  allowed  to  explain  and  mod 
ify  existing  views. 

Q 


362  LECTURES    ON    THE 

Thus  science  advances.  Not  that  it  changes.  Not 
that  it  has  any  new  facts.  Not  that  new  matter  is 
created,  or  that  new  properties  are  given  to  the  parti 
cles  that  compose  it,  but  that  the  original  great  laws 
and  facts  of  science,  in  themselves  as  fixed  and  un 
changeable  as  were  the  truths  of  the  Christian  system 
when  the  New  Testament  was  completed,  are  arranged, 
explained,  and  properly  located  in  the  respective  sys 
tems  of  science,  displacing  the  errors  of  the  past,  and 
advancing  to  that  state  where  "  man,  the  minister  and 
interpreter  of  nature,"  shall  have  brought  the  systems 
of  science,  as  far  as  the  human  powers  will  permit,  into 
harmony  with  the  system  as  it  reposed  eternally  in  the 
mind  of  the  Creator. 

III.  Such  being  the  facts  in  regard  to  the  two  sys 
tems,  it  was  inevitable  that  they  should  come  into  col 
lision,  and  that  they  should  be  liable,  at  any  time,  to 
cross  each  other.  The  nature  of  that  collision  must  de 
pend  much  on  the  false  views  which  are  at  any  time 
attached  to  the  Christian  system — as  the  sailing  of  the 
ship,  before  referred  to,  would  be  much  affected  by  the 
barnacles  and  sea-weed  attached  to  it  —  and  by  the 
views  of  philosophy  and  science  that  prevail  at  any 
time  in  the  world.  The  work  of  adjusting  the  two, 
therefore,  must  vary  from  age  to  age,  as  the  nature  of 
the  conflict  between  the  two  must  vary  in  different  pe 
riods  of  the  world.  The  battle,  under  a  new  form,  may 
be  to  be  refought  in  each  successive  generation.  The 
triumph  of  Christianity  at  any  one  time  is  by  no  means 
a  permanent  triumph,  or  even,  in  itself,  a  proof  of  per 
manent  triumph  at  all ;  and  the  apparent  triumph,  at 
any  time,  of  infidelity  is  by  no  means  a  demonstration 
of  permanent  and  ultimate  victory.  Celsus,  Porphyry, 
and  Julian  act  their  part,  and  disappear;  Hobbes, 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  363 

Chubb,  and  Morgan  follow,  and  then  vanish  from  the 
stage ;  Volney,  Gibbon,  Hume,  attack  the  system,  and 
retire  from  the  conflict;  Strauss  and  Renan,  Hegel 
and  Comte,  follow  after.  A  host  of  scientific  warriors 
rushes  on  the  arena  for  an  attack  on  the  religion  that 
is  fixed  and  unchangeable,  deriving  their  means  of  at 
tack  from  a  system  that  is  as  fixed  and  unchangeable  as 
Christianity  itself,  and  the  warfare  assumes  new  forms, 
and  is  to  be  fought  with  new  weapons.  Whether  these 
two  systems,  equally  fixed  and  unchangeable,  are  really 
in  conflict,  or  will  be  found  ultimately  to  coincide  and 
harmonize,  is  the  question  which  is  now  before  this  age, 
and  which  is,  perhaps,  to  be  before  the  world  in  the  de 
velopments  of  future  ages.  It  is  too  early  to  determine 
with  absolute  certainty  that  the  two  will  ultimately 
agree.  The  Christian  theologian  believes  assuredly 
that  it  will  be  so ;  the  scientific  skeptic  is  not  less  con 
fident  that  the  prospect  of  ultimate  harmony,  if  it  ever 
existed,  has  now  vanished  forever. 

For  my  purpose  in  these  Lectures,  it  is  important  to 
designate,  in  few  words,  the  varying  nature  of  this  con 
flict  ;  for  it  has  not  always  been  the  same,  nor  is  it  like 
ly  to  be  always  the  same  that  it  is  now. 

Historically,  the  conflict  may  be  divided  into  three 
periods :  from  the  time  when  the  Gospel  was  first 
preached  to  the  age  when  it  became  permanently  es 
tablished  in  the  world;  the  Middle  Ages  —  the  times 
when,  amidst  much  darkness  in  science,  and  much  error 
in  religion,  the  human  mind  was  struggling  into  light ; 
and  the  present  age. 

In  the  first  of  these  periods,  the  nature  of  the  conflict 
was  marked  and  definite,  and  the  conflict,  in  that  form, 
is  never  to  be  renewed.  The  systems  with  which  the 
Gospel  came  into  conflict  have  passed  away,  and  are 
not  to  be  revived. 


364  LECTURES    ON    THE 

That  conflict  was  between  Christianity  and  Judaism 
on  the  one  hand,  and  Christianity  and  the  Greek  and 
Roman  philosophy  on  the  other. 

In  Judaea,  Christianity  came  into  collision  with  relig 
ion  alone.  The  Jews  had  no  literature  besides  their 
sacred  books ;  they  had  no  science,  no  philosophy.  Be 
yond  what  is  in  their  sacred  records  they  have  contrib 
uted  nothing  of  value  to  the  progress  of  mankind,  in 
war  or  in  peace ;  and  the  collision,  therefore,  in  Judaea 
was  wholly  on  the  subject  of  religion.  The  views 
which  were  then  regarded  as  antagonistic  to  Christian 
ity  have  ceased  to  influence  the  world  beyond  the  small 
number  that  constitutes  the  remnant  of  the  Hebrew 
people,  and  the  conflicts  which  Christian  apostles  waged 
with  the  Jewish  doctors  have  ceased  forever. 

In  Greece  and  Rome  the  conflict  was  of  a  different 
nature.  It  was  partly  with  religion ;  partly  with  priest 
ly  power ;  partly  with  the  state ;  partly  with  philoso 
phy.  It  is  only  in  the  latter  aspect  that  the  subject  de 
mands  notice  now — the  conflict  with  philosophy.  It 
was,  in  fact,  a  conflict  with  "philosophy"  not  with  sci 
ence.  The  Greeks  had  little  science,  the  Romans  less. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  respect  to  the  physical 
sciences,  the  most  eminent  of  the  Greek  philosophers 
would  not  have  been  qualified  fo'r  admission  into  the 
lowest  class  of  any  American  college  ;*  nor  have  they 
contributed  any  thing  that  now  enters  into  the  instruc 
tions  in  our  laboratories  or  schools.  The  conflict,  there 
fore,  in  Greece,  and  the  same  was  true  in  Rome,  was 
with  an  acute  and  subtle  metaphysical  philosophy.  It 
was  not  on  questions  started  in  the  laboratory  or  the 
observatory,  but  in  the  Academy  and  the  Porch.  In 
Judsea  it  was  substantially  about  the  atonement;  in 
*  Compare  Whewelfs  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  vol.  i.,  b.  i. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  365 

Greece  it  was  the  whole  question  about  the  elevation 
of  the  race.  The  Greek  philosopher  knew  of  but  one 
way  of  reforming  mankind,  of  meeting  human  ills,  of 
elevating  the  race,  of  obtaining  the  favor  of  the  gods. 
It  was  by  mental  culture ;  by  development ;  by  instruc 
tion  ;  by  conformity  to  a  just  standard  of  morals.  Chris 
tianity  proclaimed  that  in  this  way  man  could  neither 
be  elevated,  nor  obtain  the  divine  favor,  nor  be  pre 
pared  for  a  future  world,  but  that  the  entire  hope  of 
the  race  for  reformation,  elevation,  and  salvation  was 
in  the  doctrine  of  Christ  crucified.  That  was  foolish 
ness  to  the  Greek.  It  was  not  on  the  line  of  his  views 
in  regard  to  the  means  of  elevating  men,  and  he  spurned 
and  rejected  the  system. 

Those  old  controversies  have  passed  away.  All  that 
there  was  in  the  philosophy  of  Greece  that  opposed 
Christianity  has  ceased  to  influence  mankind,  and  that 
philosophy  will  not  be  revived.  Celsus  and  Porphyry 
have  done  their  work,  and  they  did  it  well ;  and  except 
as  they  are  exhumed  to  illustrate  the  history  of  the 
Church,  or  are  explored  by  some  theological  teacher 
who  regards  all  wisdom  as  found  among  the  "  fathers," 
the  whole  has  gone  into  the  "  extinct  controversies"  of 
the  past. 

The  second  of  these  periods  embraced  the  Middle 
Ages ;  the  times  when,  amidst  much  darkness  in  sci 
ence,  and  much  error  in  religion,  the  human  mind  was 
struggling  into  light.  The  history  of  this  is  a  history 
of  nearly  all  the  persecutions  under  the  Papacy.  The 
peculiarity  of  this  period,  so  far  as  there  was  a  collision 
between  Christianity  and  science,  civilization,  and  the 
arts,  was,  that  the  Church  adopted  certain  interpreta 
tions  of  the  Scriptures  as  infallible ;  that  it  regarded 
the  Bible  as  making  statements  on  the  structure  of  the 


366  LECTURES    ON   THE 

universe,  as  well  as  on  the  plan  of  salvation,  which  were 
equally  to  be  received  as  a  part  of  the  creed  of  Chris 
tendom,  and  which  were  to  be  defended  in  the  same 
manner  as  any  other  articles  of  the  creed  of  the  Church; 
that  it  claimed  jurisdiction  over  all  the  subjects  of 
knowledge,  as  it  did  over  the  wealth  and  power  of 
newly-discovered  countries ;  and  that  to  doubt  the  au 
thority  of  the  Church  on  subjects  of  science  was  a  here 
sy  of  the  same  nature  as  to  doubt  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  or  the  Incarnation.  Each  successive  discovery 
in  science,  therefore,  brought  the  Church  into  contact 
with  the  world,  and  led  to  persecution.  The  collision 
was  not  with  Christianity  as  such,  but  with  Christian 
ity  as  it  was  embodied  in  the  prevailing  interpretation 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  in  the  articles  of  a  church  claim 
ing  to  be  infallible.  Thus,  in  the  case  of  Galileo,  his 
offense  in  holding  the  doctrines  of  the  Copemican  sys 
tem  was  not  against  the  Bible,  for  the  Bible,  properly 
interpreted,  has  revealed  nothing  on  the  subject,  but 
was  against  the  interpretation  put  on  the  Bible  by  the 
Church.  The  Church  had  adopted  the  Ptolemaic  sys 
tem  of  astronomy,  and  to  call  the  truth  of  that  system 
in  question  was,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Church,  an  at 
tack  on  the  Bible  itself.  Thus,  through  this  long  and 
gloomy  tract  of  ages,  science  struggled  in  dark  and  ob 
scure  places,  restrained  and  intimidated  by  the  fear  of 
a  collision  with  the  the  Church,  as  freedom  struggled 
every  where  at  the  same  time,  restrained  and  awed  by 
the  fear  of  the  papal  power.  The  one  was  held  in 
check  as  really  as  the  other.  Here  and  there,  a  solitary 
individual,  like  Roger  Bacon,  pursued  his  studies  alone. 
Each  new  discovery  involved  the  danger  of  a  conflict 
with  the  Church ;  each  advance  made  was  imperiled  by 
the  apprehension  of  impinging  on  some  article  of  faith. 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  367 

Nature  was  explored  with  the  apprehension  of  a  revela 
tion  there  that  would  be  in  conflict  with  the  infallible 
revelation  as  interpreted  by  the  Church,  and  each  new 
discovery  was  made  by  stealth,  and  with  the  fear  of  the 
rack  or  the  stake  before  the  eyes.  Science  emerged  into 
light  and  freedom  only  when  those  shackles  were  burst 
asunder,  and  men  acted  on  the  idea  that  science  was  to 
be  pursued  in  an  independent  manner,  and  that  the  ob 
servation  of  the  stars,  and  the  examination  of  the  com 
ponent  elements  of  matter,  were  not  to  be  restrained  by 
any  interpretations  which  had  been  affixed  to  the  Bible. 
The  world  was  slow  to  learn  this.  In  fact,  the  lesson 
is  not  yet  wholly  learned.  The  investigations  of  mod 
ern  astronomy,  as  in  the  time  of  Galileo,  have  been  pur 
sued  in  the  face  of  an  extensively  prevailing  belief  that 
these  disclosures  are  against  the  teachings  of  revela 
tion  ;  and  all  the  investigations  of  geology  have  been 
made,  on  the  one  hand,  by  a  hope  that  the  results  would 
be  found  to  be  in  conflict  with  the  Bible,  and,  on  the 
other,  by  a  fear  that  it  would  be  so.  Geology  and  as 
tronomy  have  achieved  their  triumphs  only  by  setting 
aside  interpretations  of  the  Bible  which  have  been  re 
ceived  in  the  Church  for  ages ;  and  the  inquiries  which 
are  now  pursued  in  regard  to  the  work  of  creation,  the 
antiquity  of  man  upon  the  earth,  the  origin  of  the  races 
of  men,  are  pursued  on  the  one  hand  with  the  hope,  and 
on  the  other  with  the  fear,  that  the  result  will  be  found 
to  be  in  conflict  with  the  teachings  of  the  Bible.  It  has 
been,  and  is,  a  slow  work  for  man  to  learn  that  his  inter 
pretation  of  the  Bible  is  not  necessarily  the  teaching  of 
the  Bible;  that  to  detach  a  false  interpretation  from 
the  Word  of  God  is  not  necessarily  an  assault  on  the 
Bible  itself,  and  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  heresy. 

We  have  fallen,  in  the  third  period,  on  other  times. 


368  LECTURES    ON   THE 

A  new  era  is  opened  upon  the  world,  and  Christianity 
and  the  world  now  come  into  collision  in  a  form  wholly 
different  from  the  collision  in  the  times  of  the  apostles 
and  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  defender  of  Christianity 
has  a  different  work  to  do  from  what  he  had  in  the  time 
of  Porphyry  and  Celsus ;  in  the  time  of  Morgan  and 
Chubb ;  in  the  time  of  Volney,  Gibbon,  and  Hume.  To 
the  Church  at  large ;  to  the  Christian  ministry ;  and  to 
those  especially  whom  I  am  called  to  address  in  these 
Lectures — those  preparing  for  the  ministry — nothing 
can  be  of  greater  importance  than  to  understand  the 
nature  of  the  conflict  which  is  to  be  before  the  Church 
in  the  next  age.  * 

A  few  remarks  here  seem  to  be  necessary  to  place 
this  part  of  the  subject  in  a  proper  light : 

(1.)  It  is,  as  before  intimated,  always  a  fair  question, 
when  there  is  an  apparent  collision  between  the  Bible 
and  science,  whether  the  collision  is,  in  fact,  between 
the  scientific  truth  and  the  J3ible,  or  between  that  truth 
and  the  prevailing  and  received  interpretation  of  the 
Bible.  The  one  is  by  no  means  to  be  assumed  as  sy 
nonymous  with  the  other.  To  the  utmost  extent  which 
the  proper  laws  of  interpreting  language  will  allow,  the 
friend  of  Christianity  is  to  be  permitted  to  apply  those 
laws  to  determine  whether  the  received  interpretation 
of  the  Bible  is  the  necessary  and  the  fair  one.  The 
Bible  is  not,  indeed,  to  be  made  a  "  nose  of  wax,"  but  it 
is  equally  true  that  the  infidel  is  not  to  be  permitted  to 
assume  that  the  interpretation  which  he  puts  on  the 
Bible  is  the  true  one,  or  that  any  interpretation  found 
in  the  creeds,  or  in  treatises  of  theology,  is  necessarily 
the  correct  one.  The  whole  question  about  the  integ 
rity  of  the  text ;  about  the  agreement  of  manuscripts ; 
about  the  changes  in  the  use  of  words ;  about  the  mean- 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  369 

ing  of  language  as  modified  in  any  particular  country, 
among  any  particular  people,  or  at  any  particular  time, 
is  a  fair  and  open  question — a  question  of  simple  inter 
pretation,  as  it  is  in  inquiring  into  the  meaning  of  Ho 
mer  or  Herodotus.  To  the  utmost  extent  to  which  the 
fair  canons  of  criticism  are  applicable  to  any  ancient 
book,  the  friend  of  the  Bible  may  avail  himself  of  those 
canons  to  detach  a  false  interpretation  from  the  Word 
of  God — to  remove  another  barnacle  from  the  ship  that 
has,  in  long  voyages,  vexed  many  seas.  Even  if,  which 
is  almost  demonstrably  impossible,  the  followers  of 
Lepsius,  Gliddon,  Nott,  and  Bunsen,  could  establish  the 
fact  that  man  has  been  upon  the  earth  for  a  period 
of  twenty  thousand  years,  it  would  still  be  an  open 
question  whether  the  Bible,  by  fair  interpretation, 
teaches  the  contrary,  and  whether  the  common  inter 
pretation  of  the  Church,  though  received  for  ages,  may 
not  have  been  founded*  on  erroneous  data  in  determin 
ing  what  the  Bible  teaches  on  the  subject,  or  whether 
it  teaches  any  thing.  There  is,  indeed,  a  limit  to  this ; 
but  it  is  a  limit  to  be  determined  in  the  case  of  the 
Bible,  as  in  the  case  of  any  other  ancient  book,  by  a 
proper  application  of  the  rules  of  exegesis. 

(2.)  The  warfare  in  our  time  between  Christianity 
and  the  world  in  respect  to  science,  civilization,  and  the 
arts,  has  changed.  The  old  modes  of  attacking  the 
Bible  have  been  abandoned,  and  the  old  modes  of  de 
fending  it  are  therefore  to  be  abandoned.  On  all  mat 
ters  pertaining  to  the  progress  of  our  race  there  are 
many  "  extinct  controversies" — old  volcanoes  that  have 
been  burned  out — leaving  nothing  but  scoria?  and  ashes, 
and  on  no  subject  is  this  more  true  than  on  the  subject 
of  theology.  Around  those  extinct  volcanoes  men  wan 
der  now  safe,  but  with  nothing  to  relieve  the  desola- 
Q2  ' 


370  LECTURES    ON   THE 

tion.  Time  was  when  all  was  commotion  there.  The 
mountain  heaved ;  the  flames  belched  forth ;  the  sky 
was  lurid ;  rivers  of  burning  lava  flowed  in  every  direc 
tion.  All  was  consumed.  Nor  city,  nor  hamlet,  nor 
tree,  nor  shrub,  nor  flower,  nor  spire  of  grass  was 
spared ;  and  perhaps  no  living  thing  will  ever  grow 
again  on  the  fatal  spot.  So  with  many  of  the  old  con 
troversies  in  philosophy ;  in  science ;  in  religion.  What 
could  more  resemble  the  scoriae  of  such  an  ancient  vol 
cano  than  the  huge  tomes  of  the  schoolmen?  What 
could  more  resemble  such  a  volcano  in  action  than  the 
heat,  and  fire,  and  zeal  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  John 
Duns  Scotus  ?  What  shrub,  tree,  flower,  or  living  thing 
can  be  culled  from  those  blackened  remains  ? 

It  is  a  material  point  thus  gained  when  one  is  gird 
ing  on  the  armor  to  fight  the  battles  of  his  own  age,  to 
know  exactly  where  he  starts,  and  what  is  precisely  the 
nature  of  the  warfare  in  which  he  is  to  engage.  It  is 
much  to  know  what  is  settled,  and  what  is  open  still. 
That  soldier  now  would  spend  his  time  to  very  little 
purpose  who  should  furbish  some  piece  of  ancient  ar 
mor;  who  should  see  that  his  helmet,  and  his  shield, 
and  his  greaves,  and  his  spear  were  in  good  condition ; 
or  who  should,  as  in  other  days,  incase  his  horse  in  ar 
mor,  and  move  into  battle  reflecting  around  him  the 
rays  of  the  sun.  Those  ancient  suits  of  armor  for  horses 
and  men  do  well  in  old  baronial  halls,  for  they  have  an 
appropriate  place  there  as  memorials  of  other  days  and 
other  men,  as  old  volumes  on  extinct  controversies  have 
an  appropriate  place  in  the  alcoves  of  vast  libraries — 
memorials  of  the  past. 

There  have  been  battles  in  regard  to  Christianity 
in  its  collision  with  the  world  which  have  been  well 
fought,  and  which  are  not  to  be  renewed  in  our  time, 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  371 

or  ever  onward.  Porphyry,  in  his  day,  had  his  field ; 
Celsus  his;  Julian  his.  In  neither  case  was  it  science 
or  sacred  criticism.  It  was  the  ancient  philosophy  as 
then  held,  coming  into  contact  with  a  new  religion — 
with  Christianity.  Those  men  did  their  work  well. 
They  did  all  that  acute  philosophers,  sustained,  in  the 
case  of  Julian,  by  the  might  of  imperial  power,  could  do 
to  prevent  the  spread  of  the  new  system.  That  battle 
is  not  to  be  fought  over  again.  The  philosophy  which 
they  held,  like  the  men  themselves,  has  long  since  passed 
away,  to  be  revived  on  earth  no  more.  So,  in  his  time, 
Yolney  had  his  field,  and  he  did  his  work  well.  Seated 
amidst  the  "  ruins"  of  ages,  and  surveying  the  empires 
and  systems  that  have  passed  away,  he  inferred  that  in 
the  course  of  events  there  must  be  a  succession  of 
"  ruins"  to  the  end  of  time,  and  that  the  existing  em 
pires  and  systems  of  philosophy  and  religion — Chris 
tianity  among  the  number — would  be  added  to  the 
ruins  of  the  past,  and  be  i*umber.ed  among  extinct  sys 
tems.  No  one  could  do  his  work  better,  than  he  has 
done,  and  that  attempt  will  not  be  made  again.  Thom 
as  Paine,  in  his  time,  had  his  field,  and  he  did  his  work 
well.  "With  talents,  indeed,  eminently  fitted  to  be  use 
ful  when  vindicating  the  "Rights  of  Men;"  with  a 
power  of  noble  language  almost  without  a  parallel  for 
popular  appeal,*  but,  also,  with  a  still  more  unequaled 

*  Chief  Justice  Marshall  says  of  him  (Life  of  Washington,  vol.  ii.,  p. 
399)  in  relation  to  the  causes  which  led  to  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  "  Many  essays  appeared  in  the  papers  calculated  to  extend 
these  opinions;  and  a  pamphlet  under  the  signature  of  Common 
Sense,  written  by  Thomas  Paine,  an  Englishman,  who  had  lately  come 
over  to  America,  had  particular  influence.  He  possessed  a  style  and 
manner  of  saying  bold  things,  singularly  well  fitted  to  act  on  the  pub 
lic  mind,  to  enlist  every  feeling  with  him ;  and  very  often,  especially 
in  times  when  men  were  greatly  agitated,  to  seize  on  the  judgment 
itself." 


372  LECTURES    ON   THE 

acquaintance  with  the  Billingsgate  of  the  English 
tongue,  and  in  this  surpassed  by  none,  he  undertook  to 
drive  the  Bible  from  the  world  by  ribaldry  and  abuse. 
That  battle  has  been  fought.  Whoever  attempts  here 
after  to  attack  Christianity  in  that  manner,  will  find 
that  the  work  has  been  already  better  done  than  he  can 
do  it  himself,  and  that  the  great  point  has  been  settled 
forever  that  religion  is  not  to  be  driven  from  the  world 
by  scorn,  ribaldry,  and  vulgarity.  In  his  day,  too,  Vol 
taire  had  his  field — satire,  learning,  poetry,  philosophy. 
He  did  his  work  well.  Who  is  to  surpass  him  ?  Who 
is  to  equal  him?  Who  shall  hope  to  succeed  in  de 
stroying  Christianity  by  such  weapons  when  the  great 
Frenchman  has  failed  ?  What  can  remain  in  that  line 
but  to  reproduce  his  criticisms,  to  republish  his  philoso 
phy,  to  repeat  his  sarcasms  ?  Mr.  Hume  had  his  field, 
and  he  has  done  his  work  well.  By  most  subtle  soph 
istry  ;  by  great  calmness ;  by  a  spirit  of  apparent  can 
dor;  by  perplexing  and  involving  a  subject  so  as,  even 
to  this  day,  to  exercise  the  ingenuity  of  the  world  to 
show  where  he  was  wrong,  when  the  great  body  of  men 
feel  that  he  was  wrong,  he  attempted  to  show — to  prove 
— that  a  miracle  could  not  be  demonstrated  to  have 
been  wrought.  Where  Thomas  Brown  and  Dugald 
Stewart  have  exhausted  their  powers  to  detect  the 
sophistry,  leaving  it  doubtful  whether  it  has  been  de 
tected,  and  where  many  a  theologian  has  attempted  to 
show  that  it  was  sophistry,  and  yet  has  left  the  impres 
sion  of  Mr.  Hume's  argument  more  deeply  imbedded  in 
the  mind  than  it  was  before,  it  can  not  be  supposed 
that  that  argument  will  be  presented  in  a  more  em 
barrassing  form,  or  that,  as  a  metaphysical  argument 
against  miracles,  it  is  to  gain  any  new  strength  in  com 
ing  ages.  Mr.  Gibbon  had  Ms  field,  and  well  he  has 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  373 

worked  it.  His  province  was  history,  and  his  investi 
gations  led  him,  as  a  skeptic,  as  he  probably  intended 
they  should,  over  the  entire  period  when  Christianity, 
from  the  feeblest  beginning,  made  its  way  over  the  Ro 
man  world,  and  "sat  down  on  the  throne  of  the  Ca3- 
sars ;"  when,  during  the  long  and  eventful  ages  of  the 
decline  of  the  empire,  Christianity  was  seen  moulding 
society,  directing  wars,  founding  empires,  modifying 
opinions,  changing  the  arts  of  life,  introducing  reA7olu- 
tions  into  manners,  dress,  dwellings,  schools ;  when  it 
controlled  the  government  and  influenced  the  people; 
when  it  founded  monasteries  and  colleges;  when  it 
poured  its  embattled  legions  0,11  the  Holy  Land,  and 
when  it  had  identified  itself  with  all  the  forms  of  civil 
ization  in  Europe.  It  was  Mr.  Gibbon's  task  to  show, 
contrary  to  the  opinion  of  the  Christian  world,  and  the 
general  judgment  of  mankind,  that  all  this  could  be, 
and  yet  the  religion  not  be  of  God.  He  did  his  work 
well.  He  did  not  leave  it  to  be  alleged,  even  by  the 
friends  of  Christianity,  that  his  aim  was  to  falsify  his 
tory  for  the  sake  of  skepticism.  As  a  historian  he 
was  among  the  most  true,  and  honest,  and  faithful  of 
men.  There  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  that  his  skep 
ticism,  bitter  as  it  was,  ever  led  him,  in  a  single  in 
stance,  to  pervert  or  falsify  a  fact,  however  much  it 
might  be  opposed  to  his  own  views  on  the  subject  of 
religion,  or  however  much  ingenuity  it  might  require 
to  escape,  as  a  skeptic,  from  the  legitimate  inferences 
from  the  fact.  By  unwearied  study ;  by  great  learning ; 
by  an  unrivaled  command  of  language ;  by  patient  toil ; 
by  a  comprehensive  grasp  of  his  great  subject,  he  has 
placed  himself  at  the  head  of  historians,  and  from  the 
time  of  Thucydides  down  to  the  present  age  there  has 
not  been  a  man  more  upright,  stern,  honest,  unbending, 


3*74  LECTUEES    ON   THE 

in  recording  the  facts  of  history.  Yet,  faithful  as  to  his 
facts,  he  traversed  the  entire  field  with  a  sneer  on  his 
countenance,  and  with  a  purpose  to  make  the  facts  as 
they  existed  do  all  that  they  could  be  made  to  do  to 
destroy  the  confidence  of  mankind  in  the  divine  origin 
of  the  Christian  religion.  No  one  hereafter,  if  he  at 
tempts  to  do  that  work  at  all,  will  do  it  so  well,  and  in 
that  method  of  destroying  faith  in  the  Christian  relig 
ion  no  more  remains  to  be  accomplished. 

IV.  These  controversies  have  passed  away,  and  these 
methods  of  attempting  to  destroy  Christianity  are  fast 
ceasing  to  exert  an  influence  on  mankind.  The  col 
lision  now  between  Christianity  and  the  world  is  sub 
stantially  a  new  form  of  collision ;  the  attack  is  from  a 
new  quarter,  and  with  new  weapons ;  the  questions  in 
volved  are  deeper  than  those  with  which  the  Church 
has  heretofore  grappled ;  the  results  of  the  conflict,  so 
far  as  we  can  see,  are  to  be  final. 

The  points  on  which  Christianity  is  now  coming  into 
collision  with  the  world  in  its  present  stage  of  progress 
in  science,  civilization,  and  the  arts,  are  principally  the 
following : 

First.  The  inspiration  of  the  Bible  —  the  question 
whether  a  "  book-revelation"  is  possible,  and  whether, 
if  possible,  the  Bible  is  such  a  revelation,  and  is  in 
fallible. 

Second.  The  antiquity  of  the  human  race — the  ques 
tion  whether,  according  to  the  commonly  received 
teaching  of  the  Scriptures,  man  has  been  upon  the 
earth  about  six  thousand  years,  or  whether  his  history 
stretches  back  for  a  period  of  ten  or  twenty  thousand 
years,  or  to  even  a  remoter  period. 

Third.  The  origin  of  the  race — whether  the  different 
types  of  men  upon  the  earth  have  had  a  common  ori- 


EVIDENCES    OP   CHRISTIANITY.  375 

gin,  and  have  been  derived  from  a  single  pair,  or 
whether,  as  is  maintained  in  regard  to  the  inferior  an 
imals,  men  have  sprung  up  in  different  centres,  either 
as  developed  from  inferior  orders  of  beings,  or  from  in 
dependent  created  "heads"  of  the  different  varieties 
upon  the  earth  —  the  Caucasian,  the  Mongolian,  the 
Ethiopian,  and  the  American ;  in  other  words,  whether 
the  varieties  in  the  human  family  can  be  reconciled 
with  the  undoubted  doctrine  of  the  Bible  that  the 
whole  human  family  is  descended  from  a  single  pair. 

Fourth.  The  whole  question  of  miracles  —  whether 
miracles  are  possible ;  whether  a  record  of  a  miracle 
could  be  believed ;  or  whether  the  laws  of  nature  are 
so  fixed  and  unchanging  that  there  never  has  been,  and 
never  can  be,  sufficient  evidence  of  the  direct  interposi 
tion  of  the  divine  power  to  justify  the  belief  that  any 
events  have  occurred  in  the  history  of  our  globe  that 
are  not  traceable  to  those  laws,  or  that  those  laws  have 
ever  been  set  aside. 

Whether,  in  this  course  of  Lectures,  any  remarks  have 
been  made  to  throw  light  on  these  points,  or  to  assist 
those  who  are  to  be  defenders  of  the  truth  in  their 
studies,  it  is  not  for  me  to  express  any  opinion.  The 
consideration  of  these  points  has,  either  directly  or  in 
directly,  entered  largely  into  these  Lectures,  and  these 
points  have,  in  fact,  been  constantly  before  my  own 
mind  in  preparing  them.  It  can  not  be  assumed  now 
that  they  are  definitely  and  forever  settled  on  either 
side,  so  that  the  discussions  on  them  can  be  ranked 
among  the  "extinct  controversies."  They  are  to  be 
among  the  active  subjects  of  controversy  and  inquiry 
in  the  next  age,  and,  in  order  that  their  importance  and 
their  bearing  on  the  whole  subject  of  Christianity  may 
be  perceived — a  bearing  well  understood  by  the  ene- 


376  LECTURES    ON   THE 

mies  of  Christianity,  a  few  additional  remarks  may  not 
be  improper. 

For  the  first  of  them — the  inspiration  of  the  Bible. 
It  is  clear  that  the  whole  question  about  a  revelation 
at  all,  and  about  Christianity  in  particular,  depends  on 
this.  Nothing  can  be  plainer  than  that  the  Bible 
claims  to  be  a  supernatural  revelation  from  God ;  that 
its  teachings  are  above  human  teachings ;  that  the  real 
author  of  the  book  is  the  Holy  Ghost  speaking  through 
inspired  men ;  and  that  its  teachings  constitute  an  in 
fallible  guide  for  man.  Deny  this;  deny  that  it  is  in 
spired  in  any  other  sense  than  Homer,  or  Ossian,  or 
Shakspeare  were  inspired,  and  it  is  clear  that  the  book 
at  once  loses  its  authority,  and  the  system  which  it  con 
tains  is  placed  on  the  same  level  as  the  system  in  the 
Koran,  the  Zendavesta,  or  the  Shasters. 

For  the  second  of  these — the  antiquity  of  man  upon 
the  earth — it  is  plain,  also,  that  the  question  may  as 
sume  such  a  form  as  to  involve  the  whole  question  of 
revealed  religion.  It  may,  indeed,  be  a  fair  question 
whether  the  Scripture  record  extends  back  precisely  to 
the  period  of  six  thousand  years,  or  whether,  if  it  were 
demonstrated  that  man  had  been  upon  the  earth  ten  or 
even  twenty  thousand  years,  the  proper  interpretation 
of  the  Bible  would  be  found  to  be  consistent  with  such 
a  fact ;  but,  beyond  all  question,  there  is  a  limit,  prob 
ably  much  within  the  twenty  thousand  years  of  man's 
residence  upon  the  earth,  according  to  the  Bible.  The 
Bible  is  a  history — a  history  of  man.  It  professes  to 
go  up  to  the  beginning — the  period  of  his  first  appear 
ance  upon  the  earth.  It  traces  the  origin  of  nations ; 
records  the  dispersions  of  the  race ;  accounts  for  the 
origin  of  languages.  In  that  history  of  living  beings — 
of  man — there  can  be  no  such  long  periods  of  sue- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  377 

cessive  repose,  of  slow  development,  of  destruction,  of 
new  creations,  and  of  sweeping  off  entire  races  from  the 
earth,  as  occur  in  the  mere  geological  history  of  the 
world,  when  an  interval,  unexplained,  of  a  thousand,  or 
a  million  of  years,  is  scarcely  to  be  taken  into  the  ac 
count.  In  other  words,  by  no  possible  propriety,  by  no 
fair  rules  of  interpretation,  can  the  liberty  be  allowed 
in  regard  to  the  history  of  man  which  is  conceded  on 
all  hands  to  the  student  of  geology  in  reference  to  the 
transformations  on  and  within  the  earth  before  man  ap 
peared  on  it.  The  earth  itself,  so  far  as  the  account  in 
the  Bible  goes,  may  have  existed  any  number  of  mil 
lions  of  ages ;  man,  according  to  the  Bible,  is  a  recent 
visitant  to  this  world,  and  the  time  is  not  remote  in  the 
past  when  he  was  formed  by  his  Creator  to  occupy  a 
world  made  ready  for  his  abode. 

For  the  third  of  these  points — the  question  whether 
the  human  race  is  derived  from  a  single  pair — it  is  man 
ifest  that  the  whole  question  of  the  truth  of  revelation 
and  of  redemption  turns  on  this.  The  Bible  records 
the  creation  of  a  single  pair,  and  no  other.  It  records 
the  migrations  and  wanderings  of  the  descendants  of 
that  one  pair  to  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  of  no  others 
(Gen.,  x.).  It  treats  the  race  as  one.  It  regards  that 
one  pair  as  the  head  of  the  entire  race,  and  affirms  that 
the  disobedience  of  that  one  pair  affected  all  the  dwell 
ers  on  the  earth  as  one  race — not  the  Caucasian  race 
only,  or  the  Mongolian,  the  African,  or  the  American, 
but  the  entire  race.  "In  Adam  all  die"  (l  Cor.,  xv.,  22). 
"  By  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death  by 
sin"  (Rom.,  v.,  12).  "By  one  man's  disobedience  many 
— ol  TroXXot — the  many — were  made  sinners"  (Rom.,  v., 
19).  These  expressions  comprehend  the  race;  and  the 
entire  doctrine  of  depravity  and  of  death,  according  to 


378  LECTURES    ON   THE 

the  Bible,  is  identified  with  the  fact  that  there  was  a 
single  pair  at  the  head  of  the  race.  The  same  is  the 
Scripture  doctrine  in  regard  to  redemption.  The  race, 
according  to  that  plan,  is  one — one  in  origin ;  one  in 
apostasy;  one  in  guilt;  one  in  death.  The  work  of 
redemption  is  not  Mongolian,  or  Caucasian,  or  Ethio 
pian,  but  it  pertains  to  man  as  man.  In  redemption,  as 
in  the  'fall,  there  is  one  Head — the  counterpart  of  the 
other,  each  acting  for  the  race.  "  As  in  Adam  all  die, 
even  so  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive"  (1  Cor.,  xv., 
22).  "  Since  by  man  came  death,  by  man  came  also  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead"  (1  Cor.,  xv.,  21).  "As  by  one 
man's  disobedience  many  were  made  sinners,  so  by  the 
obedience  of  one  shall  many  be  made  righteous"  (Rom., 
v.,  19).  In  reference  to  this  point,  also,  it  is  certain  that 
it  is  indispensable  to  proper  faith  in  the  Bible.  By  no 
fair  rules  of  exegesis ;  by  no  possible  torture  of  lan 
guage,  can  the  teachings  of  the  Bible  be  made  consist 
ent  with  the  belief  that  the  different  "  races"  of  men 
upon  the  earth  have  each  had  a  separate  origin.  "  God 
hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men,  for  to  dwell 
on  all  the  face  of  the  earth"  (Acts,  xvii.,  26).  This  fact  is 
not  only  affirmed,  but  every  where  implied,  and  well  do 
the  men  who  are  assailing  it  understand  its  bearing  on 
the  question  of  the  reception  or  rejection  of  the  Bible 
in  the  world. 

As  to  the  fourth  point — the  question  whether  mira 
cles  are  possible,  this  also  is  vital  to  all  faith  in  the 
Bible.  Mr.  Hume  understood  this,  and  attempted,  by  a 
most  ingenious  metaphysical  argument,  to  put  the  ques 
tion  about  miracles,  and  faith  in  the  Bible,  to  rest  for 
ever.  It  comes  before  the  Church  and  the  world  now 
in  a  different  form;  not  less  difficult  to  be  met;  more 
likely  to  affect  scientific  men;  more  likely  to  be  pop- 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  379 

ular.  The  doctrine  that  miracles  are  impossible  as  held 
now  is  founded  on  the  alleged  stability  of  the  laws  of 
nature.  At  first,  in  science,  nothing  seems  more  fluctu 
ating  or  unsettled  than  those  laws.  The  varying  sea 
sons  ;  the  clouds ;  the  storms  of  ocean ;  the  march  of  dis 
ease  ;  the  wantonness  of  the  lightning's  flash ;  the  play 
of  the  aurora  borealis ;  the  irregularity  of  the  term  of 
human  life ;  the  movements  of  comets  and  meteors,  all 
these  seemed  to  be  independent  of  any  fixed  laws,  and 
these  movements  were  explained  in  the  early  periods 
of  the  world,  as  Comte  (Positive  Philosophy)  has  stated, 
by  the  supposition  of  supernatural  agencies.  Silently 
and  gradually,  however,  these  irregularities  have  been 
reduced  to  order  and  law,  and  man  has  approached, 
what  Comte  regards  as  the  last  stage,  the  Ultima  Thule 
of  science,  the  Positive  philosophy: — the  point  where 
no  supernatural  agency  is  to  be  recognized ;  where  no 
events  are  to  be  traced  to  an  "  unknown  metaphysical 
cause •;"  but  where  all  that  is  known — all  that  exists — 
is  an  antecedent  and  a  sequent,  with  no  real  causation, 
and,  as  far  as  known,  no  God.*  That,  apart  from  such 
speculations  as  those  of  the  Positive  philosophy,  there 
is  a  tendency  in  our  age  to  this  result,  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  Thus  far  in  the  progress  of  science,  the  tenden 
cy  has  been,  undoubtedly,  to  find  fixed  and  unchanging 
laws  prevailing,  and  the  object  of  science  is  to  ascertain 
and  apply  those  laws.  The  studies  of  the  astronomer 
proceed  on  this  supposition;  the  investigations  in  the 
laboratory;  the  arts  of  navigation  and  agriculture; 
even  the  doctrines  of  tides,  and  winds,  and  storms,  pro 
ceed  on  the  supposition  of  the  existence  of  unvarying 

*  See  the  elaborate  and  very  able  article  on  "The  Positive  Philos 
ophy  of  Auguste  Comte,"  by  J.  S.  Mill,  Esq.,  in  the  Westminster  Re 
view  for  April,  1865. 


380  LECTURES    ON    THE 

laws.  By  all,  therefore,  that  there  is  in  such  a  tenden 
cy  to  universality;  by  all  that  is  done  to  reduce  that 
which  in  former  ages  seemed  to  be  irregular  to  the  con 
trol  of  fixed  laws ;  by  all  the  affirmations  which  scien 
tific  men  make  that  the  laws  of  nature  are  fixed  and 
unchanging,  there  is  an  approximation,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  to  the  conclusion  that  miracles  have 
never  occurred ;  that  all  the  well-established/acte  which 
have  taken  place  in  the  history  of  our  world  are  reduc 
ible  to  the  operation  of  fixed  laws ;  and  that  all  the  al 
leged  facts  that  can  not  thus  be  reduced  are  to  be 
classed  among  myths  and  fables. 

And  yet  it  is  clear  that  no  man  cwi  receive  the  Bible 
who  does  not  believe  in  the  exertion  of  miraculous 
power  in  our  world.  From  the  beginning  of  the  book 
to  the  end,  it  proceeds  on  the  supposition  that  God  has 
often  interfered  in  human  affairs  by  his  own  direct 
power ;  that  there  have  been  cases  iimumerable  where 
all  there  was  in  the  case  was  an  event,  and  the  will  of 
God  behind  it.  The  reader  of  the  Bible  walks  in  the 
midst  of  signs  and  wonders.  He  is  in  a  supernatural 
world.  He  is  in  the  constant  presence  of  Deity — God, 
in  his  sovereignty  creating  the  world  itself;  forming 
man  upon  it ;  conversing  with  man ;  giving  law  in  calm 
conversation,  and  amidst  thunders  and  tempests ;  res 
cuing  his  people  from  bondage  by  his  own  power ;  mak 
ing  a  path  for  them  through  the  sea;  overwhelming 
their  enemies ;  shaking  the  nations ;  sending  conquerors 
and  prophets  supernaturally  endowed,  until  the  whole 
is  consummated  by  the  appearance  of  the  God  incar 
nate — giving  sight  to  the  blind  and  hearing  to  the  deaf; 
healing  all  manner  of  disease,  and  raising  up  the  dead 
— himself  raised  from  the  grave  to  life,  and  borne  up  to 
heaven.  Who  can  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  who  does 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  381 

not  believe  in  miracles?  Who  can  believe  that  the 
Bible  has  the  slightest  claim  on  the  faith  of  mankind  if 
it  is  maintained  that  the  laws  of  nature  are  so  fixed 
and  unchanging  that  a  miracle  is  impossible  ? 

Y.  It  remains  to  inquire,  in  accordance  with  the  main 
design  of  this  Lecture,  and  in  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  subject,  what  is  the  relation  of  Christianity  to 
the  present  stage  of  the  world,  in  its  progress  in  sci 
ence,  civilization,  and  the  arts  ? 

In  this  part  of;  the  inquiry,  it  must  be  assumed,  as 
was  stated  in  the  beginning  of  this  Lecture,  that  when 
the  Gospel  was  announced  to  mankind  it  had  truths  of 
great  importance  to  communicate  in  advance  of  what 
the  world  then  possessed.  Assuming  this,  the  inquiry 
now  before  us  presents  itself  in  two  forms :  (l)  whether 
the  Gospel  is,  in  this  respect,  still  in  advance  of  the 
world,  or  whether  the  world  has  so  come  up  to  it,  or 
gone  ahead  of  it,  as  to  supersede  it ;  and  (2)  whether, 
admitting  that  it  is  still  in  advance  of  the  world  in  its 
disclosures,  it  has  kept  up  with  the  race  in  its  means  of 
propagating  itself,  so  as  to  be  able,  in  this  respect,  to 
maintain  its  advanced  position.  These  inquiries  do  not 
differ  so  materially  that  they  can  not  be  pursued  to 
gether. 

(1.)  The  first  material  point  in  this  part  of  the  sub 
ject  is,  that  while  the  world  has  made  great  progress  in 
other  things,  it  has  made  none  whatever  on  the  subjects 
which  constitute  the  peculiar  teachings  of  Christianity. 
In  reference  to  what  the  Gospel  claims  as  its  own,  the 
world  has  struck  out  no  light ;  has  removed  no  diffi 
culty  ;  has  answered  none  of  the  questions  which,  in 
past  ages,  have  so  perplexed  mankind.  The  effort  to 
find  out  a  knowledge  of  God ;  to  find  a  medium  of  ac 
cess  to  him ;  to  find  a  method  by  which  the  race  may 


382  LECTURES    ON   THE 

be  elevated,  and  to  find  evidence  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  seems  to  have  exhausted  itself  in  Greece.  The 
Greek  mind,  as  has  been  remarked  before,  was  perhaps 
better  fitted  for  these  inquiries  than  any  other  that  God 
has  made ;  the  Greek  taste  sought  and  found  gratifica 
tion  in  these  inquiries;  the  Greek  language  afforded  a 
better  medium  for  pursuing  those  inquiries  than  any 
other  language  which  has  been  spoken  among  men.  If, 
of  all  the  tribes  of  men,  we  were  to  select  that  to  which 
we  should  most  confidently  intrust  the  question,  How 
much  man  by  nature  can  find  out  about  God?  we 
should  unhesitatingly  select  the  Greek  mind  as  best  fit 
ted  to  solve  the  problem. 

It  is  not  undervaluing  the  science  of  astronomy,  of 
anatomy,  of  chemistry,  of  natural  philosophy,  of  geol 
ogy,  to  say  that,  to  this  hour,  they  have  made  no  dis 
closures  on  those  points  which  so  occupied  the  atten 
tion  of  the  ancients,  and  on  which  Christianity  assumed 
that  it  had  truths  in  advance  of  all  that  the  world  had 
known.  The  astronomer  points  his  glass  to  the  heav 
ens;  penetrates  the  deep  blue  ether;  reveals  worlds 
and  systems  far  beyond  the  reach  of  the  naked  eye ; 
discerns  nebulae  lying  behind  nebulae  in  the  vast  re 
gions  of  unmeasured  space,  but  does  he  see  God  ?  Does 
he  look  upon  his  throne  ?  Does  he  tell  us,  however 
long  or  intently  he  may  gaze,  whether  God  is  a  merci 
ful  Being ;  whether  there  is  a  plan  of  redemption  for 
the  fallen  and  the  lost ;  whether  there  is  a  way  of  peace 
for  a  troubled  conscience ;  whether  the  soul  is  immor 
tal;  whether 

"The  dread  of  something  after  death — 
The  undiscovered  country  from  whose  bourn 
No  traveler  returns," 

shall  make  us  • 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  383 

"  Rather  bear  those  ills  we  have, 
Than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of?" 

Does  he  answer  these  questions  so  that  the  mind  of 
Plato  —  so  that  the  mind  of  Hamlet  would  be  calm  ? 
Forever  may  he  look  through  that  tube,  and  not  a  ray 
of  light  will  visit  his  soul  from  those  distant  worlds 
about  what  man  is  so  anxious  to  learn,  and  in  respect 
to  that  on  which  he  feels  himself  so  much  in  the  dark. 
Who  goes  to  the  astronomer  to  learn  how  a  sinner  may 
be  saved,  and  how  he  himself  may  be  prepared  to  die  ? 
In  the  laboratory  of  the  chemist,  brilliant  as  are  his  dis 
coveries,  who  expects  to  learn  any  new  truths  about 
the  way  of  redemption,  and  about  the  nature  and  em 
ployments  of  the  soul  in  the  future  world  ?  The  earth, 
too,  is  explored  to  its  utmost  limits  and  its  utmost 
depths,  but  what  has  the  traveler  and  the  miner,  after 
these  wanderings  and  diggings,  to  tell  about  God  ?  Is 
wisdom  found  by  the  miner  now  any  more  than  it  was 
in  the  days  of  Job  ? 

"  He  [the  miner]  cutteth  out  rivers  among  the  rocks, 
and  his  eye  seeth  every  precious  thing.  He  bindeth 
the  floods  from  overflowing,  and  the  thing  that  is  hid 
bringeth  he  forth  to  light.  But  where  shall  wisdom  be 
found?  And  where  is  the  place  of  understanding? 
Man  knoweth  not  the  price  thereof;  neither  is  it  found 
in  the  land  of  the  living.  The  depth  saith,  It  is  not  in 
me ;  and  the  sea  saith,  It  is  not  with  me.  It  can  not  be 
gotten  for  gold,  neither  shall  silver  be  weighed  for  the 
price  thereof.  It  can  not  be  valued  with  the  gold  of 
Ophir,  with  the  precious  onyx,  or  the  sapphire.  Whence, 
then,  cometh  wisdom  ?  and  where  is  the  place  of  under 
standing  ?  seeing  it  is  hid  from  the  eyes  of  all  living, 
and  kept  close  from  the  fowls  of  the  air.  Destruction 
and  death  say,  We  have  heard  the  fame  thereof  with 


384  LECTURES    ON   THE 

our  ears.  God  understandeth  the  way  thereof,  and  he 
knoweth  the  place  thereof"  (Job,  xxviii.,  10-23). 

The  geologist,  too,  the  man  who  has  learned  the  his 
tory  of  the  earth  for  some  millions  of  ages,  what  has  he 
to  disclose  that  shall  supersede  the  teachings  of  Chris 
tianity?  What  answer  has  he  found  to  the  questions 
which  so  perplex  the  human  mind  about  the  remedy 
for  a  fallen  condition,  and  a  preparation  for  another 
world  ? 

It  may  seem  to  be  a  reflection  on  the  present  age, 
and  it  may  require  some  hardihood  to  make  the  asser 
tion,  to  say  that,  after  all,  if  a  man  wished  to  put  him 
self  into  a  position  where,  without  a  revelation,  he 
would  find  most  that  would  calm  his  spirit,  and  solve 
his  doubts,  and  elevate  his  conceptions  of  eternal  things, 
he  would  go,  not  into  the  dissecting-room  of  the  anat 
omist  ;  not  into  the  observatory  of  the  astronomer ;  not 
into  the  laboratory  of  the  chemist ;  but  would  visit  the 
ancient  Academy,  the  Porch,  and  the  Lyceum. 

On  this  subject,  then,  we  claim  that  the  Gospel  is  as 
really  in  advance  of  the  world  as  it  was  when  it  was 
first  communicated  to  men ;  that  the  world  has  neither 
gone  beyond  it,  nor  come  up  to  it,  nor  made  its- teach 
ings  less  necessary  than  they  were  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago^ 

(2.)  Assuming,  then,  that  the  apostles  had  truths  to 
communicate  to  mankind  in  advance  of  what  the  world 
then  possessed,  and  that  in  respect  to  those  truths  the 
Gospel  is  as  really  in  advance  of  the  world  in  its  pres 
ent  stage  of  progress  as  it  was  then,  it  remains  to  in 
quire  whether,  in  respect  to  the  means  which  Christian 
ity  now  has  for  propagating  and  perpetuating  those 
truths,  it  has  fallen  behind  the  world,  or  maintains  its 
advanced  position  still  ? 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  385 

It  is  ^usual  to  represent  the  apostles  as  endowed  with 
peculiar  and  exclusive  powers  in  propagating  the  truths 
of  Christianity.  It  is  not  uncommon  for  men  to  feel 
that  the  Church  has  lost  much  by  the  cessation  of  their 
peculiar  endowments  in  making  an  aggressive  move 
ment  on  idolatry  and  sin.  It  is  not  unnatural  to  feel 
that  if  the  Church  could  again  be  clothed  with  the 
power  which  it  had  in  apostolic  times,  the  conquest  of 
the  world  to  Christ  would  be  easy  and  rapid,  and  it  is 
conceivable  that  many  a  youthful  soldier  of  the  cross, 
panting  for  the  conversion  of  the  world,  and  resolving 
to  devote  himself  to  that  great  purpose  in  the  work  of 
the  ministry,  or  in  a  missionary  life,  feels  a  sense  of  dis 
couragement  in  the  fact  that  he  must  go  forth  with  few 
of  the  advantages  which  the  apostles  had  in  their  work. 
It  is  important  to  inquire  whether  this  is  so. 

The  relation  of  the  apostles  to  the  w^orld  may  be  re 
garded  as  positive  and  negative. 

(a)  Positive.  They  had  three  things.  First.  The 
power  of  speaking  the  languages  of  the  world;  or,  at 
once,  and  without  study,  the  power  of  making  their 
message  known  to  the  people  of  all  lands.  This  seems 
to  have  been  an  unlimited  power.  In  the  case  of  a  mis 
sionary  now,  the  best  years  of  his  life  are  consumed  in 
efforts,  often  imperfect  efforts,  to  place  himself  in  the 
condition  in  which  the  apostles  were  when  they  com 
menced  their  work.  /Second.  They  had  the  power  of 
working  miracles.  They  healed  the  sick ;  they  opened 
the  eyes  of  the  blind ;  they  raised  the  dead.  This,  too, 
seems  to  have  been  an  unlimited  power.  Third.  They 
had  the  advantage  of  freshness  and  novelty  in  the  mes 
sage  which  they  proclaimed  to  the  world.  Whatever 
might  be  said  in  other  respects  in  regard  to  the  system 
which  they  preached,  it  could  not  be  denied  that  the 

R 


;  tfe*  tfe  So*  <*&>*« 


".      .    '  .    :  .  .  .-    j-      .  -      "       : 


€«  MfiHL  V3t?  Jt%  Hfe  Mfe  tnML     C\$t> 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  387 

apostles  had  no  Christian  literature.  Beyond  the  books 
of  the  New  Testament — and,  in  the  beginning  of  their 
work,  not  even  these  were  written,  and,  in  the  end  of 
their  work,  not  yet  collected  into  a  volume — there  was 
nothing  to  explain,  to  illustrate,  and  to  defend  their 
doctrines ;  there  was  nothing  to  edify  the  Church ;  there 
was  nothing  to  instruct  and  guide  the  young.  Fifth. 
There  were  no  schools,  colleges,  or  seminaries  of  learn 
ing  under  Christian  influence,  and  designed  to  train  up 
a  generation  for  Christ.  All  the  schools  that  existed 
were  Jewish  or  heathen ;  nor  was  there  one  where  a 
Christian  youth  might  be  instructed  in  the  ways  of  the 
true  religion,  or  that  contemplated  the  training  of  a 
generation  for  the  service  of  God.  Sixth.  There  was, 
as  yet,  no  established  organization  of  believers  into 
churches,  designed  to  bring  a  united  influence  to  bear 
upon  the  world.  All  this  was  the  slow  work  of  time. 
It  is  to  be  remembered,  also,  that,  whatever  were  the 
advantages  of  the  gift  of  tongues,  and  the  power  of 
working  miracles,  the  immediate  effect  was  not  the  con- 
version  of  sinners.  In  the  life  of  the  Savior  himself, ' 
there  u  no  evidence  that  a  single  sinner  wa»  converted 
by  his  miracles,  nor  in  the  labors  of  the  apostles  is  there 
proof  that  one  was  converted  by  the  miracles  which 
they  wrought,  or  by  their  power  of  speaking  foreign 
languages.  This  was,  indeed,  a  proof  of  the  divine  ori 
gin  of  their  religion.  The  multitude  that  came  to 
gether  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  "marveled,"  were 
"amazed,"  and  were  "confounded" — <rvvi\v$ii  (Acts,ii, 
6, 7), "  because  that  every  man  heard  them  speak  in  his 
own  language ;"  but  the  three  thousand  were  converted, 
as  other  men  are,  by  the  preaching  of  Christ  crucified. 
Miracles  converted  no  one.  Thousands  saw  the  mira 
cles  of  the  Savior  who  joined  in  the  cry  "  Crucify  him." 


388  LECTURES    ON   THE 

Mere  eloquence  converted  no  one.  "And  my  speech 
and  my  preaching  was  not  with  enticing  words  of  man's 
wisdom,  but  in  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  with 
power"  (1  Cor.,  xi.,  4).  "And  I,  brethren,  when  I  came 
unto  you,  came  not  with  excellency  of  speech  or  of  wis 
dom,  declaring  unto  you  the  testimony  of  God." 

The  sole  ground  of  reliance  by  the  apostles  for  the 
conversion  of  men  was  the  great  truth  that  Christ  was 
crucified  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  accompanied  by  the 
power  of  the  Holy  Ghost.*  In  not  a  single  instance  do 
they  trace  the  conversion  of  a  sinner  to  miracles,  to  the 
power  of  speaking  a  foreign  language,  to  eloquence.  In 
each  and  every  instance  it  is  the  power  of  truth  as  ap 
plied  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

That  power — that  ground  of  reliance — we  have  now 
as  much  and  as  really  as  the  apostles  had — as  much 
and  as  really  —  no  less;  no  more.  The  truth  is  un 
changed;  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  undimin- 
ished ;  the  promises  that  He  will  apply  the  truth  when 
properly  presented  are  as  full  and  as  fresh  now  as  they 
were  then.  Each  minister  of  the  Gospel,  in  Christian 
or  in  heathen  lands,  may  go  to  his  work  as  fully  under 
the  influence  of  this  feeling,  and  as  fully  armed  with 
this  power,  as  the  apostles ;  and  as  the  power  from  this 
source  was  entirely  in  advance  of  what  the  world  pos 
sessed  in  the  time  of  the  apostles,  so  is  it  equally  in  ad 
vance  of  the  world  in  the  stage  of  its  present  progress 
in  civilization,  science,  and  the  arts. 

(3.)  I  refer  next  in  proof  that  the  Gospel  has  not  fall 
en  behind  the  world,  that  it  has  now  the  advantage  of 
the  trial  made  by  it  during  the  long  period  of  eighteen 
hundred  years.  Like  every  other  system,  it  started,  of 

*  Compare  Acts,  ii.,  16-21;  x.,  44;  xi.,  16;  xvi.,  14;  1  Cor., 
iii.,  5,  7. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  389 

course,  without  this  advantage;  like  every  other  sys 
tem,  it  may  now  avail  itself  of  all  that  can  fairly  be  de 
rived  from  its  history  in  vindication  of  its  truth,  and  in 
aiding  in  its  diffusion. 

It  has  a  history — a  long,  a  peculiar,  a  definite,  a  very 
marked  history.  It  had  its  origin  at  a  time  when  the 
great  empire  that  had  so  long  ruled  the  world  was 
tending  to  decay;  it  lived  through  all  the  changes 
which  occurred  in  its  "  Decline  and  Fall"  as  traced  by 
Mr.  Gibbon ;  it  has  been  connected,  in  many  cases  close 
ly  identified,  with  the  origin  and  growth  of  the  great 
kingdoms  which  now  control  the  world.  It  has  a  his 
tory  as  bearing  on  individuals ;  on  families ;  on  nations; 
on  the  course  of  events.  It  has  a  history  in  regard  to 
trials ;  to  conflicts ;  to  persecutions ;  to  death.  It  has 
a  history*of  confessors,  saints,  and  martyrs ;  a  history  in 
regard  to  its  influence  on  domestic  life,  on  education, 
on  customs  and  laws.  That  history  is  now  before  the 
world,  and  can  not  now  be  changed. 

It  is  true  that,  in  close  connection  with  real  Chris 
tianity,  often  so  apparently  close  as  to  be  mistaken  for 
it,  there  has  been  a  history  of  false  Christianity — a  sys 
tem  of  persecution,  blood,  and  fire.  The  friends  of 
Christianity  are  not  insensible  to  that  fact;  they  do 
not  attempt  to  conceal  it.  In  nominal  connection  with 
Christianity  there  have  been  wars,  corruptions,  vices, 
oppressions,  persecutions.  But  these  doings  are  not 
Christianity,  nor  is  Christianity  responsible  for  them. 
If,  however,  a  man  should  strangely  say,  lost  to  all 
great  principles  of  history  and  philosophy,  that  Chris 
tianity  is  responsible  for  these  things,  we  ask,  Why  ? 
How  ?  Are  these  things  prescribed  and  commanded  in 
the  book  which  embodies  the  laws  and  doctrines  of  the 
system — the  New  Testament?  Did  they  characterize 


390  LECTURES    ON   THE 

the  life  of  its  Great  Founder?  Were  they  enjoined  by 
the  teachings  of  his  apostles  ?  There  can  be  no  mis 
take  on  this  subject.  The  nature  of  the  system,  as  laid 
down  in  the  New  Testament,  can  not  be  misunderstood. 
The  enemies  of  religion  can  tell  what  the  religion  re 
quires  as  well  as  its  friends,  and  often  the  best  judges 
of  what  it  demands  are  those  who  complain  of  the  in 
consistencies  of  its  professed  friends,  and  who  hold  them 
to  the  observance  of  a  rule  which  they  themselves  seem 
little  inclined  to  obey. 

We  know  what  the  effect  of  Christianity  is — its  effect 
on  the  child,  the  wife,  the  man.  We  know  what  is  its 
effect  on  domestic  peace,  industry,  comfort.  We  know 
what  is  its  effect  in  elevating  woman,  under  nearly  all 
other  systems  sunk  in  deep  degradation.  We  know 
what  is  its  effect  on  intelligence,  industry,  and.  liberty. 

We  know  what  are  its  affinities  /  with  what  it  nat 
urally  combines.  We  are  very  imperfectly  acquainted 
with  the  elements  of  matter  until  we  know  with  what 
they  will  combine,  and  what  will  be  the  result  of  the 
combination.  Each  of  the  sixty  or  more  elementary 
substances  that  compose  our  world  has  its  own  proper 
ties,  and  we  do  not  understand  the  nature  of  matter 
itself  until  we  understand  what  the  properties  of  those 
individual  substances  are,  and  with  what  other  sub 
stances,  and  in  what  proportions,  they  will  combine. 
There  is  the  power  of  attraction  and  repulsion ;  there 
are  laws  of  chemical  affinity  that  produce  all  the  forms 
of  matter,  either  when  united  with  life  or  when  inor 
ganic,  which  make  up  our  beautiful  world.  We  do  not 
understand  the  nature  of  oxygen  or  nitrogen ;  of  phos 
phorus,  of  carbon,  or  of  calcium — of  any  of  the  metals, 
until  we  know  with  what  they  combine,  and  in  what 
proportions. 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  391 

The  same  is  true  of  systems  of  morals  and  religion. 
We  know  not  what  they  are  until  we  know  what  their 
affinities  are — with  what  they  most  naturally  combine. 

No  man  is  surprised  to  find  Mr.  Hume,  under  the  no 
tions  of  religion  which  he  cherished,  proclaiming  that 
"justice  is  not  a  natural,  but  artificial  virtue,  depending 
wholly  on  the  arbitrary  institutions  of  men,  and  pre 
vious  to  the  establishment  of  civil  society  not  at  all  in 
cumbent  ;  that  moral,  intellectual,  and  corporeal  virtue 
are  all  of  the  same  kind ;  that  adultery  must  be  prac 
ticed  if  men  would  obtain  all  the  advantages  of  this 
life ;  that,  if  generally  practiced,  it  would  soon  cease  to 
be  scandalous,  and  that,  if  practiced  secretly  and  fre 
quently,  it  would  by  degrees  come  to  be  thought  no 
crime  at  all ;  that  the  life  of  a  man  is  of  no  greater  im 
portance  than  that  of  an  oyster,  and  as  it  is  admitted 
that  there  is  no  crime  in  diverting  the  Nile  or  the  Dan 
ube  from  their  courses,  so  there  can  be  none  in  turning 
a  few  ounces  of  blood  from  their  natural  channel,  or 
that  suicide  is  lawful."*  His  principles  led  to  such  re 
sults,  and  he  had  the  hardihood  and  the  honesty  to 
avow  it.  No  man  is  surprised  to  learn  that  the  horrors 
of  the  French  Revolution  followed  the  promulgation  of 
the  doctrines  of  the  French  Encyclopaedia.  All  the 
blood  shed  in  the  French  capital ;  all  the  crimes  of  the 
Revolution,  were  the  regular  results  of  the  doctrines  de 
fended  by  Voltaire  and  his  fellow-laborers.  No  man  was 
surprised  at  the  results  reached  in  "  New  Harmony." 
The  seed  sown  produced  its  appropriate  harvest. 

The  same  principle  is  applicable  to  Christianity. 
Like  the  chemical  elements  in  nature,  and  like  the  sys 
tems  of  infidel  philosophy,  it  has  its  proper  laws  of  aifin- 

*  See  the  proof  that  Mr.  Hume  held  these  opinions  in  Magee  on 
Atonement  and  Sacrifice,  p.  425-429. 


392  LECTURES    ON   THE 

ity ;  and  its  nature  is  not  known  till  those  laws  are  un 
derstood.  After  an  experience  of  eighteen  hundred 
years,  the  world  has  learned  what  those  laws  are. 
Christianity  combines  every  where  with  pure  morality, 
with  chaste  living,  with  refined  manners,  with  domestic 
peace,  with  temperance,  with  industry,  with  order,  with 
law,  with  learning,  with  liberty.  The  press,  colleges, 
sphools,  the  courtesies  of  refined  life,  charity  to  the  poor, 
to  the  needy,  and  to  the  outcast,  find  a  natural  ally  in 
Christianity,  and,  wherever  it  goes,  we  know  that  these 
will  be  found  in  its  train.  What  it  has  gained  in  this 
respect  is  a  part  of  its  capital,  and  is  not  to  be  trans 
ferred  to  any  other  system. 

(4.)  I  refer  next,  in  proof  that  Christianity  has  not 
fallen  behind  the  world,  and  as  illustrating  its  relation 
to  civilization,  science,  and  the  arts,  to  what,  for  want 
of  a  better  name,  may  be  called  its  radiations.  I  mean 
by  that  term  to  denote  the  influences  which  have  gone 
beyond  the  direct  agency  of  the  system,  and  which  have 
passed  over  on  other  systems,  and  made  them,  in  a 
great  measure,  what  they  are.  The  idea  is,  that  the 
condition  of  the  world  has  been  materially  modified  by 
Christianity  beyond  its  direct  influence,  and  that,  to  un 
derstand  its  exact  nature  and  value,  the  extent  of  that 
influence  should  be  known. 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  in  this  Lecture  that  the 
world  has  made  great  progress  since  the  Gospel  was 
first  made  known ;  that  it  is  in  many  respects  a  differ 
ent  world  from  what  it  was  when  Paul  stood  on  Mars' 
Hill  in  Athens ;  that  a  Greek  of  the  age  of  Pericles,  if 
he  should  now  appear  again,  would  find  himself  in  a 
different  world  from  that  in  which  he  lived.  The  re 
mark  which  I  am  now  making  is,  that  this  change  has 
been  produced  in  a  very  considerable  degree  by  what 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  393 

I  refer  to  as  the  radiations  of  Christianity ;  by  those  in 
fluences  which  have  passed  beyond  its  immediate  sphere 
in  the  Church,  and  which  have  affected  surrounding  ob 
jects.  I  refer  to  those  things  which  make  a  Christian 
nation  different  from  other  nations ;  to  those  things  de 
rived  from  it  which  could  not  now  be  detached  from  civ 
ilization  without  destroying  the  entire  fabric. 

It  is  probable  that  there  is  not  one  thing  that  now 
pertains  to  us  in  a  Christian  land,  and  which  we  value 
as  a  part  of  our  civilization,  which  has  not  been  made 
in  a  great  manner  what  it  is  by  the  silent  and  accumu 
lating  influence  of  Christianity.  The  laws  under  which 
we  live  are  different  from  what  they  would  have  been. 
The  methods  of  administering  justice  are  different.  The 
ideas  of  punishment  are  different.  The  securities  for 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  are  different. 
The  manners  and  customs  of  those  among  whom  we 
live  are  different.  Our  domestic  arrangements  are  dif 
ferent.  The  provisions  made  for  the  poor  and  the 
needy ;  for  the  sick  and  the  wounded ;  for  the  blind, 
the  deaf,  and  the  insane,  are  different. 

Now  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain  how  much  of  this 
is  due  to  Christianity,  for  no  man  can  prove  that  the 
world  would  not  have  made  progress  in  these  respects 
if  Christianity  had  not  been  revealed.  But  no  man  can 
deny  that  a  very  considerable  portion  of  the  comforts 
which  we  enjoy  from  day  to  day  are  to  be  traced  to  the 
radiating  influences  of  the  Gospel.  Apart  from  what 
is  its  religious  teaching,  and  apart  from  its  influence  in 
saving  the  soul,  the  world  is  different  now  from  what 
it  would  have  been  if  the  Christian  system  had  not  been 
revealed. 

We  claim  all  this  as  belonging  to  Christianity,  and 
as  indicating  its  source.  And  in  estimating  the  rela- 
R2 


394  LECTURES    ON   THE 

tion  of  Christianity  to  the  world  in  its  present  stage  of 
progress  in  science,  civilization,  and  the  arts,  we  ask 
that  all  that  it  has  done  in  making  science,  civilization, 
and  the  arts  what  they  are,  should  be  taken  into  the  ac 
count;  and  we  hold  that  the  question  whether  Chris 
tianity  is  still  ahead  of  the  world,  or  whether  it  is 
abreast  of  the  world,  or  whether  it  has  fallen  in  the 
rear,  and  can  now  be  dispensed  with,  can  not  be  determ 
ined  unless  we  could  detach  from  the  institutions  of  so 
cial  and  civilized  life  all  that  they  have  derived  from 
the  Christian  religion,  and  survey  them  as  they  would 
be  then. 

(5.)  I  refer,  in  illustration  of  the  relation  of  Christian 
ity  to  the  present  age  and  to  future  ages,  to  what,  for 
want  of  a  better  term,  also,  I  may  call  the  appliances  of 
Christianity.  I  refer  to  the  question  whether  it  has 
kept  its  relative  position  in  regard  to  the  means  of 
propagating  and  perpetuating  itself  on  the  earth. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  previous  remarks,  that  there 
was  little  in  this  respect  in  the  time  of  the  apostles ; 
that  Christianity  had  no  press,  no  literature,  no  schools, 
almost  no  organization. 

In  reference  to  the  means  which  the  world  now  has 
of  perpetuating  and  extending  what  it  has  secured, 
there  is  a  difference  as  great  between  the  apostolic  age 
and  the  present  as  there  is  in  the  things  which  have 
been  secured  at  one  period  and  the  other.  Whatever 
may  have  been  done  in  regard  to  ancient  literature,  to 
scientific  discoveries,  to  valuable  works  of  art,  to  civil 
ization,  to  the  means  of  prosecuting  war,  as  to  the  ques 
tion  of  perpetuating  these  things,  it  is  certain  that 
nothing,  in  all  time  to  come,  will  now  imperil  their  ex 
istence.  Those  great  discoveries  are  secured  in  libra 
ries,  in  public  monuments,  in  the  very  necessities  of 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  395 

common  life.  What  now  can  destroy  a  great  poem,  a 
valuable  historical  work,  or  a  treatise  on  medicine  or 
astronomy,  multiplied  as  it  is  by  the  art  of  printing  ? 
What  can  destroy  the  printing-press,  the  compass,  the 
quadrant,  the  steam-engine,  the  magnetic  telegraph  ? 
Society,  in  striking  out  these  inventions,  has  made  them 
self-perpetuating,  and  has  secured  the  means,  in  the 
things  themselves,  of  their  preservation,  of  their  diffu 
sion  over  the  earth,  and  of  their  transmission  to  future 
times.  Has  Christianity,  in  its  movements,  kept  its  rel 
ative  position  in  this  respect  also  ? 

Christianity,  more  than  science,  has  secured  the  press. 
It  early  seized  upon  it  as  a  most  important  auxiliary ; 
it  made  it  tributary  to  its  own  great  work  in  diffusing 
the  doctrines  of  the  Reformation ;  it  now  employs  it  in 
the  work  of  diffusing  the  truths  of  revelation  in  a  large 
part  of  the  languages  spoken  on  the  earth.  It  takes 
the  press  with  it  wherever  it  goes ;  it  forms  no  plan  for 
its  own  propagation  or  perpetuity  except  in  connection 
with  it. 

Christianity  has  a  literature  of  its  own,  as  large,  as 
important,  as  powerful  on  public  sentiment  as  the  liter 
ature  of  any  other  department  of  thought  and  action. 
One  would,  perhaps,  be  surprised,  in  attempting  to  re 
move  what  is  properly  a  Christian  literature  from  the 
alcoves  of  a  great  library,  to  find  how  large  a  part  of 
the  library  would  be  removed  by  such  an  attempt ;  how 
many  vacancies  would  be  made  on  the  shelves — to  see 
how  much  of  that  literature  has  been  created  by  Chris 
tianity  ;  how  much  that  once  controlled  the  world  has 
been  removed  into  a  comparatively  obscure  and  unfre 
quented  part  of  the  library  by  the  changes  which  have 
been  made  by  Christianity  in  public  opinion. 

Christianity  has  done  much  to  control  the  literature 


396  LECTURES    ON   THE 

which  it  has  not  directly  created,  and  has  made  it  dif 
ferent  from  what  it  would  otherwise  have  been.  A 
large  part  of  the  books  of  history,  poetry,  philosophy, 
and  science  are  different  from  what  they  would  have 
been  if  they  had  had  their  origin  in  lands  remote  from 
the  Christian  religion.  Even  Mr.  Hume's  History  of 
England  was  moulded  and  modified  by  the  fact  that  he 
wrote  of  a  Christian  nation ;  Mr.  Gibbon's  History  is 
not  what  it  would  have  been  if  he  had  not  been  called 
upon  to  record  the  influence  of  Christianity  in  remould 
ing  the  nations  of  Europe  during  and  after  the  decline 
and  fall  of  the  Roman  empire. 

The  great  names  which  adorn  Christian  literature  are 
quite  on  a  level  with  those  which  pertain  wholly  to  the 
world.  In  history,  in  poetry,  in  eloquence,  in  close  and 
powerful  reasoning,  the  names  which  Christianity  claims 
as  its  own  are  on  a  level,  at  least,  with  those  which  are 
claimed  by  the  world.  In  poetry,  is  there  a  greater 
than  John  Milton  ?  In  profound  reasoning,  is  there  a 
greater  than  Jonathan  Edwards?  In  imagination,  is 
there  one  superior  to  Jeremy  Taylor?  In  eloquence, 
has  the  world  any  superior  to  Massillon  or  Bourdaloue 
— to  Robert  Hall  or  Thomas  Chalmers  ? 

Christianity  has  surrounded  itself  with  colleges  and 
schools.  It  plants  them  wherever  it  goes.  Taking  the 
world  at  large,  the  colleges  are,  at  least,  under  a  nom 
inal  Christian  influence.  Edinburgh,  St.  Andrew*s,  Glas 
gow,  Cambridge,  and  Oxford ;  Bonn,  Heidelburg,  Halle, 
Gottingen,  are,  to  a  great  extent,  under  Christian  influ 
ence.  In  our  own  country  there  is  not  one  avowedly 
infidel  college ;  nor  could  such  a  college  be  sustained. 
There  was  one  founded  under  the  auspices  of  a  great 
state,  and  under  the  patronage  of  one  that  at  one  time 
wielded  more  influence  than  any  other  man  in  the  United 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  397 

States,  but  its  own  internal  peace  demanded  the  influ 
ence  of  religion,  and,  in  this  respect,  it  has  taken  its 
place  by  the  side  of  the  other  colleges  of  the  land. 
There  is  not  a  Legislature  in  our  land  that  would  char 
ter  an  infidel  college  as  such,  nor  could  it  live  a  year  if 
it  were  thus  chartered. 

Christianity  has  originated  a  new  form  of  literature 
wholly  its  own ;  a  literature  not  known  under  any  an 
cient  form  of  mythology ;  not  known  under  any  form 
of  modern  heathenism ;  not  known  to  infidelity ;  not 
known  to  philosophy ;  and  it  has,  at  the  same  time,  orig 
inated  an  institution  most  effective  for  applying  that 
literature,  and  for  securing  its  own  influence  over  the 
young.  I  allude  to  the  Sabbath-school,  and  to  the  lit 
erature  which  has  been  originated  by  that  institution. 
This,  if  there  were  nothing  else,  would  show  that  Chris 
tianity,  in  its  efforts  to  perpetuate  and  propagate  itself, 
is  quite  abreast  of  the  world.  The  literature  of  the 
Sabbath-school  may  not  be,  in  respect  to  quality,  all 
that  could  be  desired,  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
there  is  any  other  department  of  literature  that  is  ex 
erting  as  much  influence  on  the  destinies  of  mankind. 
Infidelity  has  no  peculiar  literature  for  the  young,  nor 
has  it  any  institution  where  to  inculcate  its  sentiments 
on  the  young.  Mohammedanism  and  Buddhism  have 
no  peculiar  literature  for  the  young,  nor  have  they  any 
peculiar  institution  for  training  up  the  young  in  those 
views  of  religion.  Science,  with  great  difficulty,  pre 
pares  books  for  the  young,  but  its  literature  in  astron 
omy,  botany,  chemistry,  designed  to  guide  the  young, 
as  compared  with  the  literature  of  the  Sabbath-school, 
is  meagre  in  the  extreme.  The  Sabbath-school,  and  the 
Sabbath-school  library,  stand  by  themselves.  Both  ca 
pable  undoubtedly  of  great  improvement,  they  are, 


398  LECTURES    ON  THE 

nevertheless,  exerting  a  vast  power  on  the  coming  gen 
eration,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  a  religion  that  has 
such  an  agency  as  the  Sabbath-school  could  be  exterm 
inated  from  the  world.  One  day  during  each  week,  of 
every  month  in  the  year,  the  children  of  this  nation  are 
brought  directly  under  Christian  instruction,  with  all 
the  advantages,  in  theory  at  least,  of  calling  into  the 
service  the  best  talent,  the  highest  intelligence,  the 
warmest  piety,  the  most  devoted  zeal,  existing  in  the 
churches.  Through  all  the  states  of  the  Union,  and  in 
all  the  territories,  by  agencies  of  its  own,  that  literature 
is  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  young,  before  other  influ 
ences  are  brought  to  bear  on  them,  to  form  their  opin 
ions,  to  make  their  hearts  pure,  to  teach  them  to  believe 
the  Bible,  and  to  love  and  serve  God.  Whatever  else 
the  world  may  do  in  its  progress,  we  may  be  certain 
that  it  will  not  be  in  advance  of  this  arrangement  of 
Christianity  to  diffuse  and  perpetuate  itself  upon  the 
earth. 

The  argument  which  has  been  submitted  to  you  in 
this  Lecture,  as  the  conclusion  of  the  course,  is  founded 
on  the  idea  that  a  religion  starting  in  advance  of  the 
world,  from  such  a  region,  and  such  a  source  as  that  in 
which  Christianity  was  originated,  and  which,  through 
ages  of  wonderful  progress  in  civilization,  science,  and 
the  arts,  still,  after  the  lapse  of  eighteen  hundred  years, 
maintains  that  position;  a  religion  which  has  lived 
through  all  forms  of  furious  and  fiery  persecution ;  a 
religion  which  has  originated  much  of  that  which  now 
enters  into  the  ameliorated  condition  of  the  world  in 
customs,  manners,  laws,  and  modes  of  life ;  a  religion 
which,  by  elective  affinity,  has  attached  itself  to  all  that 
is  good  and  valuable  in  human  discoveries,  and  has  re 
fused  a  permanent  connection  with  evil;  a  religion 


EVIDENCES    OF   CHRISTIANITY.  399 

which  now,  in  its  own  means  of  perpetuity  and  propa 
gation,  is  still  in  advance  of  the  world,  can  be  best  ex 
plained  on  the  supposition  that  it  is  what  it  claims  to 
be,  of  divine  origin,  and  that  it  can  not  be  explained  on 
any  other  supposition.  The  argument  is,  substantially, 
that  it  must  have  been  founded  on  a  knowledge  of  the 
future  which  is  above  the  unaided  powers  of  man ;  on 
the  fact  that  man  can  not  adjust  any  system  to  the  fu 
ture  in  its  varying  and  uncertain  changes ;  on  the  fact 
that  in  all  human  systems  there  must  be  arrangements 
for  making  changes  to  adapt  them  to  unforeseen  devel 
opments  and  the  progress  of  the  world — as  in  govern 
ments  providing  for  "  amendments"  to  their  Constitu 
tions,  as  in  our  own,  or  silently  submitting  to  changes 
forced  upon  them  by  time,  as  in  the  British  Constitu 
tion  ;  on  the  fact  that  in  architecture,  in  the  arts,  in  ag 
riculture,  in  navigation,  in  all  the  great  departments  of 
human  progress,  the  things  which  are  adapted  to  one 
age  must  silently  give  way  in  the  progress  of  events — 
as  in  naval  warfare  the  Greek  triremes  would  be  useless 
now,  and  wooden  ships  are  superseded  by  iron-clad  ves 
sels,  and  in  land  service  the  buckler,  and  the  shield,  and 
the  breastplate,  and  the  coat  of  mail  have  been  laid 
aside ;  on  the  fact  that  no  creed  originated  by  man  can 
be  adapted  to  every  coming  age  of  the  world  and  to 
every  land ;  on  the  fact  that  the  old  arrangements  for 
preserving  the  memory  of  past  events  and  the  discov 
eries  in  science,  by  wax,  and  metal  plates,  and  the  sty 
lus,  become  useless  when  the  art  of  printing  is  made 
known,  and  are  laid  aside.  Since,  of  necessity,  all  these 
things  pass  away,  how  was  it  that  Christianity  was  ad 
justed,  at  the  outset,  to  all  the  possible  changes  in  the 
world ;  to  all  the  progress  which  mankind  could  make 
in  science,  in  civilization,  and  the  arts  ?  The  simplest 


400  LECTURES    ON   THE 

solution  is,  that  it  was  originated  by  an  Omniscient 
One,  and  is  therefore  divine. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  this  argument,  there  is 
an  inference  from  the  whole  subject  in  which  all  will 
agree,  and  the  statement  of  which  is  peculiarly  appro 
priate  to  this  place,  and  as  the  closing  remark  of  these 
Lectures.  It  is,  that  such  a  religion  is  to  maintain  its 
position  only  by  keeping  abreast  or  ahead  of  the  world. 
The  men  who  are  to  defend  it  in  this  age  and  in  com 
ing  generations  are  to  be  men  who  are  "  up  to  their 
age."  The  arguments  by  which  the  philosophy  of  the 
Epicureans  and  Stoics  could  be  met  at  Athens  do  not 
constitute  all  the  arguments  which  are  needed  now. 
The  weapons  which  led  to  victory  in  the  contests  of  the 
"fathers"  with  Celsus  and  Porphyry  will  not  necessa 
rily  lead  to  victory  now.  The  methods  of  the  school 
men  are  not  all  that  is  needed  now.  The  weapons 
which  seemed  so  formidable  in  past  ages  might  not  be 
formidable  now.  Old  weapons  of  war — greaves,  and 
shields,  and  spears,  and  catapults,  were  useful,  but  there 
comes  a  time  when  they  are  laid  aside,  and  find  repose 
in  ancient  halls  and  towers.  There  is  a  "  living  age," 
and  it  is  much  for  a  young  man  entering  on  life,  and  es 
pecially  in  a  position  where  he  will  be  called  to  defend 
Christianity  as  the  main  business  of  his  life,  to  know 
that  there  is  such  an  age,  and  what  it  is.  Theologians 
must  deal  with  living  men  and  with  living  opinions, 
and  if  they  are  not  prepared  for  this,  they  are  not  pre 
pared  for  the  work  of  their  age.  The  ministry  must  be 
prepared  to  meet  men — living  men — on  the  question  of 
the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  and  with  arguments 
that  will  commend  themselves  to  those  trained  in  the 
principles  of  profound  criticism;  on  the  question  about 
the  antiquity  of  the  race  on  earth,  and  with  arguments 


EVIDENCES    OF    CHRISTIANITY.  401 

not  derived  from  synods  and  councils ;  on  the  whole 
question  of  miracles,  and  of  a  supernatural  influence  in 
the  affairs  of  men.  A  more  deep  and  subtle  Pantheism 
in  the  form  of  Rationalism  or  Positivism  lies  at  the 
foundation  of  the  sciences  of  this  day,  as  they  are  held, 
than  the  great  mass  of  the  friends  of  Christianity  are 
aware  of,  and  against  all  this,  it  may  be  unconsciously, 
the  friend  of  Christianity  struggles  and  contends  when 
he  attempts  to  impress  its  truths  on  the  minds  of  men. 
No  true  friend  of  Christianity  could  wish  that  the  min 
isters  of  religion  should  be  less  pious,  or  less  imbued 
with  Biblical  learning;  but  let  them  go  prepared  to 
meet  the  world  as  it  is,  and  not  go  clad  in  the  armor  of 
a  past  generation,  only  to  find  that  the  enemy  which 
that  kind  of  armor  is  fitted  to  subdue  has  long  been 
wandering  in  the  land  of  shades  among  the  knight-er- 
rants  of  the  past. 

It  can  not,  therefore,  but  be  regarded  as  a  very  au 
spicious  circumstance  that  in  this  seminary  a  movement 
should  have  been  commenced,  suggested  by,  and  sus 
tained  by  laymen,  with  a  view  to  this  state  of  things ; 
to  connect  the  seminary  more  with  the  world  around 
it ;  to  "draw  to  its  aid  what  may  be  of  advantage  in  this 
respect  from  those  engaged  in  other  departments  of 
learning,  and  those  engaged  in  the  active  duties  of  pas 
toral  life ;  and  it  is  an  auspicious  circumstance — what 
those  laymen  well  knew  would  be  the  case — that  such 
a  movement  has  the  entire  concurrence  of  the  pro 
fessors  of  the  seminary)  and  is  hailed  by  them  as  mate 
rially  aiding  them  in  their  great  work.  Other  things 
being  equal,  that  seminary  of  sacred  learning  only 
which  thus  feels  the  contact  with  the  living  world  will 
meet  the  wants  of  the  coming  age ;  those  institutions 
which  do  not  feel  this,  and  which  resist  such  influences, 


402    LECTURES  ON  THE  EVIDENCES  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

will  exhaust  their  power  in  perpetuating  a  dead  ortho 
doxy  in  the  Church,  and  will  leave  the  world  around 
to  the  influence  of  Rationalism,  Positivism,  and  Pan 
theism. 


APPENDIX, 


WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  THE  LECTURE  ON 
MIRACLES— LECTURE  V. 


IN  the  delivery  of  these  Lectures  on  the  Evidences  of  Christianity, 
there  was  a  very  important  point  which,  if  not  wholly  passed  over,  was 
not  discussed  with  the  fullness  which  the  nature  of  the  subject  de 
manded.  Of  this  I  was  myself  deeply  sensible  when  the  Lectures 
were  composed,  and  of  this  I  presume  my  hearers  were  painfully  sen 
sible  at  the  time  when  they  were  delivered.  I  can  not  doubt  that 
there  were  persons  in  the  audience  who  would  have  been  desirous  of 
asking  me  questions,  as  I  should  have  been  if  I  had  been  listening  to  a 
course  of  Lectures  on  that  subject,  and  I  can  not  deny  that  questions 
might  have  been  easily  proposed  which  I  could  not  have  answered,  and 
it  may  have  excited  some  surprise  that  inquiries  which  could  have  been 
so  easily  made,  and  which  would  have  seemed  to  be  so  obviously  prop 
er,  were  not  more  fully  considered  in  the  Lectures.  These  inquiries 
might  have  been  made  by  two  classes  of  persons,  and  if  proposed  by 
both  or  by  either,  they  would  seem  to  be  such  as  to  have  a  claim  to  a 
candid  answer,  (a)  It  is  probable  that  they  may  have  occurred  to  the 
theological  students  for  whom  the  Lectures  were  especially  prepared, 
and  who  might  feel  that  they  would  be  likely  to  encounter  the  very 
difficulties  involved  in  such  inquiries  in  the  work  of  the  ministry,  and 
who  might  have  desired  to  be  furnished  with  the  means  of  allaying 
doubts  which  perhaps  were  suggested  by  the  Lectures,  and  of  removing 
difficulties  which  they  could  easily  foresee  they  would  be  likely  to  meet 
in  their  professional  life ;  and  (6)  they  are  inquiries  which  would  have 
been  made  by  those  who  are  not  believers  in  the  truth  of  Christianity, 
if  such  were  present,  and  who  might  have  found  a  secret  satisfaction 
in  the  fact  that  the  difficulties  were  not  met,  and  that  the  questions 
which  they  would  have  asked  were  not  solved,  and  in  the  belief  that 
the  fact  that  they  were  not  adverted  to  was,  in  their  apprehension, 
a  tacit  confession  on  the  part  of  the  lecturer  that  the  difficulties  could 
not  be  removed. 

These  difficulties  pertained  especially  to  the  subject  of  miracles — the 


404  APPENDIX. 

subject  particularly  discussed  in  the  fifth  Lecture,  though  often  alluded 
to  in  the  other  Lectures. 

The  difficulty  would  be  expressed,  in  few  Avords,  in  the  following 
questions  :  What  evidence  is  there  in  favor  of  the  miracles  of  the  Bible 
stronger  than  that  which  can  be  alleged  for  witchcraft,  necromancy, 
sorcery,  divination,  and  demonology ;  for  the  miracles  practiced  among 
the  heathen ;  for  the  miracles  of  the  early  Christian  Church  subse 
quent  to  the  time  of  the  apostles,  and  for  the  miracles  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  communion  ?  Since,  in  the  progress  of  the  world ;  in  the 
diffusion  of  science ;  in  the  advances  of  civilization  ;  in  the  careful  ex 
amination  of  historical  testimony,  the  world  has  been  disabused  of  be 
lief  in  these  things,  or  is  tending  to  universal  skepticism  in  regard  to 
them,  why  should  not  the  same  result  be  reached  in  regard  to  the  al 
leged  miracles  of  the  Bible,  and  to  all  that  is  claimed  there  to  be  su 
pernatural?  In  other  words,  Avhy  should  not  the  principles  of  Ration 
alism,  which  have  been  made  so  effective  in  relieving  the  world  of  su 
perstition,  and  of  unfounded  claims  to  the  supernatural,  be  applied  to 
that  which  is  claimed  in  the  Bible  to  be  supernatural,  and  the  race  be 
effectually  delivered  from  all  that  remains  that  is  supposed  to  be  a  de 
parture  from  the  established  laws  of  nature  ? 

For  the  omission  in  not  considering  this  inquiry  there  were  two 
reasons : 

One  was  the  difficulty  of  prosecuting  the  inquiry  in  a  course  of  Lec 
tures  designed  to  be  in  their  main  features  of  a  popular  character,  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  make  it  interesting  to  the  audience  that  was  to 
be  addressed.  The  course  of  Lectures,  by  the  terms  of  the  founda 
tion,  was,  indeed,  designed  mainly  to  be  for  the  benefit  of  the  students 
of  the  seminary,  and  the  course  prescribed  was  to  be  on  such  subjects 
as  would  come  before  them  in  their  preparation  for  the  ministry,  and  in 
this  view  the  points  now  adverted  to  would  have  been  eminently  ap 
propriate,  difficult  as  it  might  have  been  to  make  the  discussion  inter 
esting  in  a  public  Lecture ;  but  the  course  was  also  designed  to  be,  in 
some  measure,  a  connecting  link  between  the  seminary  and  the  public, 
and  it  was  contemplated  that  the  Lectures  should  be  of  such  a  charac 
ter  as  Avould  be  interesting  to  a  popular  audience,  and  it  Avould  haAre 
been  difficult  to  present  an  argument  on  these  points  Avhich  would  be 
interesting  to  such  an  audience.  An  argument  on  the  subject,  to  be 
of  A-alue,  must  be  somewhat  abstruse.  Such  an  argument  could  not 
have  been  compressed  into  a  single  Lecture,  and  could  not  haAre  been 
appended  to  the  Lecture  devoted  to  the  subject  of  miracles,  Avithout 
protracting  it  to  a  length  that  Avould  haA7e  A'iolated  all  the  rules  of 
propriety.  It  might  have  been  difficult,  moreover,  before  such  an  aur 
dience,  to  present  the  subject  in  such  a  manner  us  not  to  create  more 


APPENDIX.  405 

doubts  than  would  have  heen  allayed,  and  the  subject,  therefore,  was 
passed  over  in  silence. 

The  other  reason  for  the  omission  was,  that  if  the  questions  had 
been  proposed  to  me,  I  should  have  been  constrained  to  admit  that 
there  were  difficulties  on  the  subject  which  I  could  not  then  solve. 

In  reference  to  these  difficulties  I  made  the  following  remarks  in  the 
course  of  the  Lecture  on  Miracles : 

"I  confess  that  of  all  the  questions  ever  asked  on  the  subject  of 
miracles,  this  is  the  most  perplexing  and  the  most  difficult  to  answer. 
It  is  rather  to  be  wondered  at  that  it  has  not  been  pressed  with  more 
zeal  by  those  who  deny  the  reality  of  miracles,  and  that  they  have 
placed  their  objections  so  extensively  on  other  grounds.  From  the 
fact  that  it  is  so  seldom  referred  to  by  skeptics,  it  is  manifest  that  it 
does  not  strike  them  as  it  strikes  me,  and  that  they,  from  some  cause, 
are  not  disposed  to  use  it  as  I  would,  if  I  had  no  faith  in  miracles ;  and 
perhaps  it  may  savor  more  of  apparent  candor  than  of  wise  prudence 
for  a  believer  in  the  reality  of  miracles  even  to  make  the  suggestion. 

"  The  argument  might  be  made  very  strong,  and  if  there  were  time 
to  present  it  here,  it  might  be  done  in  such  a  manner  that  it  might 
seem,  at  least,  to  be  impossible  to  meet  and  refute  it."* 

I  might,  indeed,  have  taken  refuge  from  the  difficulties  adverted  to 
under  the  plea  that  on  any  subject  questions  may  be  asked  which  can 
not,  in  the  present  state  of  human  knowledge,  and  perhaps  with  the 
limited  capacities  of  the  human  mind,  be  answered ;  that  it  is  no  cer 
tain  evidence  of  the  falseness  of  an  opinion,  or  the  weakness  of  an  ar 
gument,  that  such  questions  can  be  asked ;  and  that  if  we  were  to 
pause  in  our  investigations  of  truth  at  the  exact  point  where  a  question 
might  be  asked  which  we  could  not  answer,  the  range  of  our  inquiries 
would  be  narrowed  down  to  the  smallest  conceivable  dimensions.  Such 
an  answer,  however,  would  not  have  satisfied  an  inquirer,  and  the  im 
pression  could  scarcely  have  been  avoided  in  such  an  answer  that  there 
was  a  consciousness  that  there  was  something  in  the  question  which 
could  not  be  answered ;  for  while  it  would  be  admitted  by  all  persons 
qualified  to  judge  in  such  inquiries  that  questions  may  be  asked  on  any 
subject  which  no  one  can  answer,  it  must  be  admitted  that  questions 
may  be  asked  on  most  subjects  which,  if  not  answered,  will  be  fatal  to 
an  argument.  In  such  a  case  as  that  before  us,  under  such  circum 
stances,  the  inference  would  be  likely  to  be  drawn  that  this  was  one 
of  those  subjects. 

The  argument  on  miracles,  therefore,  would  not  be  complete  if,  after 
having  referred  so  often  in  the  Lecture  to  this  as  constituting  perhaps 
the  most  important  point  in  the  evidences  of  Christianity  in  the  nine- 
*  Page  101. 


406  APPENDIX. 

teenth  century,  and  after  having,  perhaps,  suggested  doubts  which 
might  not  have  occurred  to  others,  I  should  allow  the  Lectures  to  go 
forth  in  a  volume,  perhaps  much  beyond  the  circle  of  those  who  heard 
them,  without  an  attempt,  at  least,  to  solve  the  difficulty,  though  in 
doing  it  I  may  have  occasion  on  some  points  to  avail  myself  of  the 
admission  that  there  are  difficulties  which  I  can  not  solve,  and  that 
questions  may  be  asked  on  this  subject,  as  on  any  other,  which  we 
might  be  compelled  to  admit  that  we  could  not  answer. 

The  point  of  difficulty,  and  the  question  to  be  solved,  may  be  made 
apparent  by  a  few  remarks : 

(a)  In  a  course  of  Lectures  on  the  Evidences  of  Christianity  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  it  was  impossible  not  to  advert  to  the  great  chan 
ges  which  have  occurred  in  the  opinions  of  the  world  on  the  subject  of 
the  supernatural  and  the  marvelous  in  the  course  of  eighteen  hundred 
years — in  other  words,  to  the  progress  of  "Rationalism"  in  that  long 
period.  The  fact  of  such  a  change  is  apparent  on  the  face  of  history, 
and  the  progress  of  "  nationalism"  becomes  a  very  important  part  of 
history,  alike  in  secular  and  sacred  matters,  for  the  principles  of  Ra 
tionalism  have  been  applied  as  fearlessly  to  Grecian  records  and  to 
Roman  history  as  to  the  Bible.  Eighteen  hundred  years  ago  there 
were  numerous  subjects  then  supposed  to  pertain  to  the  region  of  the 
supernatural  which  are  now  well  understood  to  be  connected  with  the 
operation  of  the  regular  laws  of  nature,  as  eclipses,  meteors,  comets, 
storms,  diseases ;  and  there  were  numerous  other  subjects  then  sup 
posed  to  be  connected  with  the  supernatural,  as  divination,  necroman 
cy,  witchcraft,  and  sorcery,  which  have  been  detached  from  the  faith 
of  mankind,  and  which  have  taken  their  place  with  myths  and  legends. 
So  far  as  the  facts  in  regard  to  this  change  of  opinion  are  concerned, 
and  so  far,  in  the  main,  as  the  causes  of  this  change  are  concerned,  the 
history  has  been  given  to  the  world  in  our  own  time  in  a  work  of 
great  learning,  with  great  attractiveness  of  style,  and  with  a  full  ac 
quaintance  with  the  subject — a  work  which  leaves  nothing  in  regard  to 
the  history  of  this  change  to  be  desired.*  It  was  impossible,  in  a 
course  of  Lectures  on  the  Evidences  of  Christianity  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  not  to  advert  to  this  history,  and  not  to  inquire  into  the  bear 
ing  of  this  change  in  the  sentiments  of  mankind  on  the  evidences  of 
the  miraculous  and  the  supernatural  in  the  Bible.  The  history  of  this 
change  I  have,  therefore,  more  than  once  adverted  to.  The  fact  of 
the  change  can  not  be  called  in  question ;  its  tendency,  as  relating  to 
the  question  of  the  evidences  of  revealed  religion,  is  one  of  the  most 
important  inquiries  now  before  the  Church  and  the  world. 

*  History  of  the  Rise  and  Influence  of  the  Spirit  of  Rationalism  in  Europe, 
by  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  M.A.,  in  2  vols.  N.  York :  D.  Appleton  and  Co.,  1866. 


APPENDIX.  407 

(6)  The  effect  of  this  change,  as  related  to  the  subjects  discussed 
in  these  Lectures,  are  such  as  the  following : 

1.  A  great  number  of  things  once  regarded  as  matters  of  true  his 
tory  are  now  reduced  to  the  place  of  legends,  myths,  fables.     One  has 
only  to  look  into  Grote's  History  of  Greece,  or  into  Niebuhr's  History 
of  Home,  or  indeed  into  any  history  that  professes  to  trace  events  in 
the  past  to  their  origin,  to  see,  if  the  expression  may  be  allowed,  as  de 
rived  from  the  classic  writings,  that  the  "god Terminus"  has  removed 
the  point  where  authentic  history  commences  very  far  within  what  was 
once  regarded  as  the  true  boundary,  and  that  the  intelligible  and  reli 
able  accounts  of  the  affairs  of  the  world  have  their  beginning  very  far 
within  what  was  once  regarded  as  the  proper  point  from  which  to 
reckon  the  progress  of  human  affairs.     It  is  a  very  natural  inquiry 
whether  the  same  process  of  elimination  may  not  properly  be  applied 
to  the  Bible,  as  well  as  to  the  Egyptian,  Persian,  Greek,  and  Koman 
histories. 

2.  Many  things  once  regarded  as  supernatural  and  miraculous,  as  I 
have  more  than  once  observed,  have  been  reduced  to  the  operation  of 
the  regular  and  established  laws  of  nature.     Portents,  wonders,  com 
ets,  eclipses,  meteors,  diseases,  have  been  taken  out  of  the  region  of  the 
supernatural,  and  placed  under  the  rules  of  natural  science,  and  now 
constitute  subjects  of  regular  instructions  in  the  schools,  instead  of 
being  regarded  with  superstitious  dread,  or  made  subjects  by  which 
one  class  of  men  can  secure  an  ascendency  over  another,  or  by  which 
the  errors  and  impositions  of  false  religions,  under  the  control  of  a 
priesthood,  can  be  kept  up  in  the  world.     It  is  a  fair  question,  and 
one  which  this  age  is  asking,  whether  the  same  principles  of  explana 
tion  can  not  be  applied  to  all  those  cases  recorded  in  the  Bible  which 
have  been  commonly  relied  on  as  miracles. 

3.  The  world  has  been  disabused,  so  far  as  sound  science  has  gone, 
of  its  belief  in  divination,  necromancy,  demonology,  witchcraft,  sorcery, 
and  the  region  of  the  supernatural  has  been  narrowed  to  an  extent 
which  we  can  not  well  estimate  by  the  withdrawal  of  these  things  from 
the  causes  which  affect  the  progress  of  human  affairs  and  the  destiny 
of  mankind.     It  is  a  question  which  we  can  not  avoid  in  contemplat 
ing  this  course  of  things,  whether  the  wonders  of  the  Bible  can  not  be 
reduced  to  the  same  class  of  events,  and  may  not  be  explained  as  those 
ancient  wonders  that  exerted  so  much  influence  on  mankind  may  now 
be  explained,  and  take  their  places  with  the  things  that  derived  their 
influence  from  the  fears,  the  credulity,  and  the  superstitions  of  the 
early  ages  of  the  world. 

4.  There  has  been  a  great  change  on  the  subject  of  faith  in  the 
miracles  in  the  early  Christian  Church  subsequent  to  the  time  of  the 


408  APPENDIX. 

apostles.  If  a  disbelief  in  those  miracles  is  not  absolutely  universal, 
yet  it  may  be  said  that  it  is  rapidly  becoming  so,  and  that  that  result 
is  morally  certain.  For  a  long  time  the  faith  in  those  miracles  was 
undoubted,  and,  even  among  Protestants,  the  question  was  not  whether 
such  miracles  were  actually  wrought,  but  at  what  time  they  ceased. 
So  universal  was  the  belief  in  those  miracles,  that  even  Mr.  Locke  con 
sulted  Sir  Isaac  Newton  on  the  question,  not  whether  such  miracles 
were  wrought,  but  at  what  time  they  ceased.  In  one  of  the  letters  of 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  to  Mr.  Locke  there  is  a  somewhat  hesitating  passage 
on  this  subject:  "Miracles,"  says  he,  "of  good  credit  continued  in 
the  Church  for  about  two  or  three  hundred  years.  Gregorius  Thau- 
maturgus  had  his  name  from  thence,  and  was  one  of  the  latest  who 
was  eminent  for  that  gift ;  but  of  their  number  and  frequence  I  am 
not  able  to  give  you  a  just  account.  The  history  of  those  ages  is  very 
imperfect." — Brewster's  Life  of  Newton,  p.  275.  The  prevalent  be 
lief  on  this  subject  among  the  Christian  "fathers,"  to  which  I  may 
have  occasion  to  advert  again,  may  be  learned  from  St.  Augustine, 
the  ablest  and  most  clear-headed  of  those  fathers,  and  a  man  of  un 
doubted  piety.  He  solemnly  asserts  that  in  his  own  diocese  of  Hippo, 
in  the  space  of  two  years,  no  less  than  seventy  miracles  had  been 
wrought  by  the  body  of  St.  Stephen,  and  that  in  the  neighboring  prov 
ince  of  Calama,  where  the  relic  had  previously  been,  the  number  was 
incomparably  greater.  He  gives  a  catalogue  of  what  he  deems  un 
doubted  miracles,  which  he  says  he  had  selected  from  a  multitude  so 
great  that  volumes  would  be  required  to  relate  them  all.  In  that  cat 
alogue  there  are  no  less  than  five  cases  of  restoration  from  the  dead. 
— De  Civitat.  Dei,  lib.  xxii.,  c.  8.  See,  also,  Sermons  of  Augustine 
(Serm.  286,  §  4)  ;  and  his  Confessions. — B.  ix.,  vii.,  p.  1C.  Since  the 
time  of  Middleton,  and  his  attack  on  the  veracity  of  the  fathers,*  the 
faith  in  these  early  miracles  of  the  Christian  Church  has  to  a  great 
extent  died  away,  and  the  question  is  an  obvious  one  why  the  same 
reasoning  which  has  destroyed  the  faith  of  mankind  in  those  miracles 
should  not  also  be  applied  to  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  ? 

5.  The  belief  in  the  reality  of  the  Roman  Catholic  miracles,  once  so 
universal  in  Europe,  and  made  so  extensively  the  basis  in  maintaining 
that  religion  in  those  countries  where  it  is  established,  and  of  extend 
ing  it  among  the  heathen,  has,  in  the  more  enlightened  and  scientific 
portions  of  the  world,  almost  wholly  passed  away.  Of  course,  no  such 
faith  is  entertained  by  any  of  the  Protestant  nations.  No  such  faith 
is  entertained  by  scientific  men  as  such.  To  a  great  extent,  also,  there 

*  A  Free  Inquiry  into  the  Miraculous  Powers  which  are  supposed  to  have 
subsisted  in  the  Christian  Church  from  the  Earliest  Ages  through  several  suc 
cessive  Centuries,  by  Conyers  Middleton,  D.D.  London,  1740. 


APPENDIX.  409 

is  a  general  incredulity  on  the  subject  among  the  most  intelligent  and 
scientific  of  the  Roman  Catholics  themselves.  On  this  point,  Mr. 
Lecky,  in  remarking  on  the  former  belief  in  the  supernatural  in  Eu 
rope,  makes  the  following  remarks  :  "  All  this  has  now  passed  away. 
It  has  passed  away,  not  only  in  lands  where  Protestantism  is  triumph 
ant,  but  also  in  those  where  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  is  still  acknowl 
edged,  and  where  the  medieval  saints  are  still  venerated.  St.  Janu- 
arius,  it  is  true,  continues  to  liquefy  at  Naples,  and  the  pastorals  of 
French  bishops  occasionally  relate  apparitions  of  the  Virgin  among 
very  ignorant  and  superstitious  peasants ;  but  the  implicit,  indiscrim- 
inating  acquiescence  with  which  such  narratives  were  once  received 
has  long  since  been  replaced  by  a  derisive  incredulity.  Those  who 
know  the  tone  that  is  habitually  adopted  on  these  subjects  by  the  con 
verted  in  Roman  Catholic  countries  will  admit  that,  so  far  from  being 
a  subject  of  triumphant  exultation,  the  very  few  modern  miracles 
which  are  related  are  every  where  regarded  as  a  scandal,  a  stumbling- 
block,  and  a  difficulty.  Most  educated  persons  speak  of  them  with 
undisguised  scorn  and  incredulity ;  some  attempt  to  evade  or  explain 
them  away  by  a  natural  hypothesis  ;  a  very  few  faintly  and  apologet 
ically  defend  them.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  what  is  manifested  is 
merely  a  desire  for  a  more  minute  and  accurate  examination  of  the 
evidence  by  which  they  are  supported.  On  the  contrary,  it  will,  I 
think,  be  admitted  that  these  alleged  miracles  are  commonly  rejected 
with  an  assurance  that  is  as  peremptory  and  unreasoning  as  that  with 
which  they  would  have  been  once  received.  Nothing  can  be  more  rare 
than  a  serious  examination,  by  those  who  disbelieve  them,  of  the  testi 
mony  on  which  they  rest.  They  are  repudiated,  not  because  they  are 
unsupported,  but  because  they  are  miraculous.  Men  are  prepared  to 
admit  almost  any  conceivable  occurrence  of  natural  improbabilities 
rather  than  resort  to  the  hypothesis  of  supernatural  interferences ;  and 
this  spirit  is  exhibited  not  merely  by  open  skeptics,  but  by  men  who 
are  sincere,  though  perhaps  not  very  fervent  believers  in  their  church." 
— History  of  Rationalism,  vol.  i.,  p.  159, 160. 

The  general  result  of  this  state  of  things,  or  the  prevalent  feeling  on 
the  subject,  may  be  stated  in  the  words  of  Lecky :  "  If  we  put  aside 
the  clergy,  and  those  who  are  most  immediately  under  their  influence, 
we  find  that  this  habit  of  mind  is  the  invariable  concomitant  of  educa 
tion,  and  is  the  especial  characteristic  of  those  persons  whose  intellect 
ual  sympathies  are  most  extended,  and  who  therefore  represent  most 
faithfully  the  various  intellectual  influences  of  their  time."  "  All  his 
tory  shows  that,  in  exact  proportion  as  nations  advance  in  civilization, 
the  accounts  of  miracles  taking  place  among  them  become  rarer  and 
rarer,  until  at  last  they  entirely  cease."  "The  plain  fact  is,  that  the 

s 


410  APPENDIX. 

progress  of  civilization  produces  invariably  a  certain  tone  and  habit  of 
thought  which  makes  men  recoil  from  miraculous  narratives  with  an 
instinctive  and  immediate  repugnance,  as  though  they  were  essentially 
incredible,  independently  of  any  definite  arguments,  and  in  spite  of 
dogmatic  teaching." — Ibid,  p.  161,  162.  To  what  this  change  may 
tend  may  be  illustrated  by  a  remark  of  the  Rev.  Frederick  Temple, 
D.D.,  Head-master  of  Rugby  School,  in  a  sermon  before  the  Univer 
sity  of  Oxford  on  "The  present  relations  of  Science  to  religion" — a 
remark  that  may,  without  impropriety,  be  regarded  as  expressing  the 
sentiments  or  the  fears  of  many  in  the  Church.  He  says,  "  The  stu 
dent  of  science  is  learning  to  look  upon  fixed  laws  as  universal,  and 
many  of  the  old  arguments  which  science  once  supplied  to  religion  are 
in  consequence  rapidly  disappearing.  How  strikingly  altered  is  our 
view  from  that  of  a  few  centuries  ago  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the 
miracles  recorded  in  the  Bible,  which  once  were  looked  on  as  the  bul 
warks  of  the  faith,  are  now  felt  by  very  many  to  be  difficulties  in  their 
way ;  and  commentators  endeavor  to  represent  them,  not  as  mere  in 
terferences  with  the  laws  of  nature,  but  as  the  natural  action  of  still 
higher  laws  belonging  to  a  world  whose  phenomena  are  only  half  re 
vealed  to  us.  It  is  evident  that  this  change  in  science  necessitates  a 
change  in  its  relation  to  faith.  If  law  be  either  almost  or  altogether 
universal,  we  must  look  for  the  finger  of  God  in  that  law — we  must  ex 
pect  to  find  him  manifesting  his  love,  his  wisdom,  his  infinity,  not  in 
individual  acts  of  will,  but  in  a  perfection  of  legislation  rendering  all 
individual  action  needless  ;  we  must  find  his  providence  in  that  perfect 
adaptation  of  all  the  parts  of  the  machine  to  one  another  which  shall 
have  the  effect  of  tender  care,  though  it  proceed  by  an  invariable  ac 
tion." — Recent  Inquiries  in  Theology,  p.  489. 

The  great  question  now,  as  I  stated  in  the  Lecture  on  Miracles — the 
great  question  of  our  age  in  regard  to  religion,  and  not  less  important 
in  regard  to  science,  is,  How  far  this  skepticism  is  to  extend?  What 
is  its  proper  limit  ?  Is  the  principle  to  become  so  universal  as  to  in 
clude  all  the  facts  claiming  to  be  of  a  supernatural  nature  which  have 
actually  occurred,  or  which  will  occur  in  our  world?  Is  it  to  embrace 
the  whole  region  of  the  miraculous  and  the  supernatural,  so  as  to  ex 
clude  the  idea  of  any  direct  agency  on  the  part  of  God,  any  phenom 
ena — any  changes — the  antecedents  in  which  are  only  the  divine  will 
and  the  divine  power  ?  So  it  is  maintained  by  Rationalists ;  such,  too, 
is  the  practical  belief  of  many  men  whose  lives  are  devoted  to  sci 
ence. 

The  progress  of  things,  the  influences  of  civilization,  the  discoveries 
of  science  in  regard  to  physical  laws,  have  "exorcised"  the  world,  if 
the  expression  may  be  allowed,  in  regard  to  sorcery,  witchcraft,  magic, 


APPENDIX.  411 

necromancy,  portents  and  wonders  in  eclipses,  storms,  and  earth 
quakes ;  are  these  to  "exorcise"  the  world  in  regard  to  mesmerism, 
spiritualism,  spirit-rapping,  and  table-moving;  and  are  they  also  to 
"exorcise"  it  in  regard  to  the  belief  that  Joshua  caused  the  sun  to 
"stand  still  upon  Gibeon,"and  the  moon  "in  the  valley  of  Ajalon;" 
to  the  stilling  of  the  tempest  on  the  Sea  of  Tiberias  ;  to  the  healing  of 
the  lame  man  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda ;  to  the  opening  of  the  eyes  of 
Bartimeus ;  to  the  raising  of  Lazarus  from  the  grave,  and  to  the  res 
urrection  of  the  Redeemer  himself? 

The  material  inquiry  is,  What  stronger  historical  evidence  is  there 
of  the  truth  of  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  than  of  the  alleged  facts  re 
specting  witchcraft,  sorcery,  divination,  and  necromancy ;  the  alleged 
marvels  in  the  early'history  of  the  world — as  the  prodigies  which,  ac 
cording  to  Livy,  attended  the  founding  of  Rome ;  the  alleged  miracles 
in  the  Christian  Church  after  the  death  of  the  apostles ;  and  the  al 
leged  miracles  of  the  mediaeval  ages,  and  of  the  Catholic  Church  in 
modern  times  ?  May  not  the  same  process  of  explanation  by  which 
the  world  has  been  disabused  of  faith  in  these  things  be  legitimately 
applied  to  the  Bible  ?  Skeptics  and  Rationalists  claim  that  it  may  be 
so,  and  should  be  so ;  the  existence  of  the  Christian  religion  in  the 
world  depends  on  making  out  the  contrary. 

The  proper  points  of  inquiry,  therefore,  in  the  solution  of  the  ques 
tion  would  be, 

I.  The  causes  which  have  led  to  the  change  in  the  opinions  of  the 
world  in  regard  to  the  marvelous ;  and, 

II.  The  question  whether  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  can  not  be  ex 
plained  in  the  same  manner,  and  whether  they  may  not  also  take  their 
place  with  the  illusions  and  deceptions  of  former  ages. 

These  inquiries  manifestly  cover  the  whole  ground. 

I.  The  causes  which  have  led  to  these  changes  in  the  opinions  of 
the  world  in  regard  to  the  marvelous. 

Those  causes  are  now  well  understood,  and  may  be  referred  to  in 
few  words. 

(1.)  The  reduction  of  events  which  were  supposed  to  be  supernatu 
ral  to  the  operation  of  natural  laws.  In  this  solution  the  facts  are,  of 
course,  admitted,  and  the  effects  produced  by  those  facts  on  the  minds 
of  men  are  admitted  also.  The  explanation  is  sought  in  laws  that  are 
now  well  understood,  and  that  imply  nothing  that  is  supernatural. 
Thus,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  eclipses,  comets,  meteors,  that  were 
regarded  as  marvelous  and  supernatural  in  the  early  periods  of  the 
world,  indicating  by  their  appearing  the  pleasure  or  the  displeasure, 
the  favor  or  the  wrath  of  the  gods,  or  heralding  important  events,  are 
now  reduced  to  laws  that  are  as  regular  and  as  well  understood  as  the 


412  APPENDIX. 

ordinary  laws  of  nature,  and  excite  no  more  alarm  or  apprehension 
than  the  rising  or  the  setting  of  the  sun  and  the  stars. 

Very  many  things  are  thus  withdrawn  from  the  region  of  the  mar 
velous,  and  now  take  their  places  in  the  ordinary  course  of  events. 
The  world  no  longer  believes  that  the  harvest-fields  are  under  the  con 
trol  of  Ceres  ;  that  Neptune  rules  on  the  sea ;  that  ^Eolus  controls  the 
winds ;  that  Dryads  and  Fawns  preside  in  the  groves ;  or  that  the 
healing  properties  of  medicine  are  to  be  traced  to  the  god  JEsculapius 
—  and  the  woods,  and  the  groves,  and  the  lakes  are  deserted ;  the 
temples  of  Ceres,  and  Neptune,  and  Bacchus,  and  JEsculapius  are 
no  longer  crowded  by  worshipers,  and  more  substantial  and  perma 
nent  honors  are  rendered  to  scientific  men  who  have  discovered  the 
laws  by  which  the  phenomena  are  explained  than  were  rendered  to 
the  imaginary  divinities. 

Science,  then,  just  in  proportion  as  it  has  made  progress  in  the 
world,  has  contributed  to  this  change  of  opinion ;  has  relieved  the 
world  of  the  fears  attendant  on  superstition ;  and  has  contributed,  if 
not  always  to  the  introduction  and  establishment  of  true  religion,  at 
least  to  the  removal  of  superstition  and  idolatry.  The  mythology  of 
Greece  can  never  be  restored ;  the  Parthenon  can  never  be  rebuilt ; 
the  Pantheon  can  never  be  again  a  temple  for  heathen  gods  and  hea 
then  worship. 

(2.)  The  progress  of  civilization  may  be  referred  to  as  a  second 
cause  of  this  change.  This,  indeed,  would  include,  in  some  measure, 
that  which  has  above  been  adverted  to,  the  progress  of  science,  for 
that  enters,  of  course,  largely  into  the  progress  of  civilization.  The 
point  to  be  now  adverted  to  is  that  which  has  been  dwelt  upon  so  much 
by  Lecky,  and  which  springs  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  that,  up  to 
a  certain  period  at  least,  in  proportion  as  society  advances  in  civiliza 
tion,  the  belief  in  the  marvelous  disappears,  and  that  the  very  progress 
of  civilization  tends  to  prepare  the  minds  of  men  to  disbelieve  in  the 
supernatural  altogether,  or  leads  to  Rationalism — to  Rationalism  in  a 
proper  use  of  that  word;  to  "Rationalism,"  in  fact,  in  the  sense  in 
which  that  word  is  commonly  employed. 

And  yet,  with  all  the  concessions  which  should  be  made  on  that 
point,  it  would  be  a  fair  inquiry  how  far  the  mere  progress  of  civiliza 
tion  would  in  fact  conduct  the  human  mind,  or  what,  in  this  respect, 
would  be  its  legitimate  influence  on  the  world.  It  could  not  fail  to  be 
noticed  in  such  an  inquiry  that  mere  civilization  has  never  destroyed 
the  love  of  the  marvelous  and  the  belief  in  the  supernatural ;  that  the 
belief  of  the  marvelous  and  the  supernatural  prevailed  under  the  high 
est  forms  of  civilization  in  Greece  and  Rome ;  that  it  prevails  in  the 
most  civilized  nations  of  the  world  at  this  day ;  and  that,  if  one  form  of 


APPENDIX.  413 

belief  in  the  supernatural  is  banished  to  any  extent  from  the  minds  of 
men  by  an  advanced  civilization,  another  form  may  take  its  place  not 
more  reconcilable  with  the  sober  and  chastened  laws  of  science.  It 
can  not  be  forgotten  that  in  this  age — an  age  which  we  regard  as  more 
civilized  than  any  past  period,  certainly  as  more  civilized  than  the 
ages  in  which  a  belief  in  necromancy,  divination,  and  witchcraft  pre 
vailed,  and,  in  the  apprehension  of  many  in  this  age,  more  civilized 
and  advanced  than  the  ages  when  there  was  a  general  faith  in  mira 
cles,  there  is  a  wide-spread  belief  in  mesmerism,  in  spirit-rapping,  in 
table-turning,  and  in  "spiritualism"  — in  actual  converse  with,  and 
communication  with,  the  spirits  of  departed  men,  and  that  this  belief 
is  by  no  means  confined  to  those  who  lay  no  claims  to  a  refined  civil 
ization,  or  who  are  of  the  most  humble  walks  of  life.  Scientific  men ; 
literary  men  of  no  mean  name — judges,  physicians,  lawyers,  and  "phi 
losophers,"  are  found  in  the  class  of  those  who  believe  in  these  marvels  ; 
and  perhaps  the  very  home  of  this  faith  may  be  found  in  the  most  en 
lightened  cities  of  our  own  country,  in  the  very  vicinity  of  the  most 
celebrated  seats  of  learning,  or  in  the  most  refined  walks  of  life.*  Yet, 
while  these  things  are  so,  it  can  not  be  doubted  that  the  advancing 
civilization  of  the  world  has  had  an  important  influence  in  narrowing 
the  circle  of  the  supernatural  and  the  marvelous,  nor  that  there  is  a 
tendency  in  such  civilization  to  suggest  the  inquiry  whether  a  perfect 
civilization  would  not  remove  all  traces  of  the  miraculous  and  the 
marvelous  from  the  world. 

(3.)  In  connection  with  this,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  there  has  been 
a  course  of  events  in  the  world  that  has  tended  to  disabuse  mankind 
of  unfounded  claims  to  a  favored  and  peculiar  acquaintance  with  the 
secrets  of  nature,  to  a  compact  with  powerful  spiritual  beings,  to  inter 
course  with  the  spirits  of  the  departed,  and  to  the  special  favor  of  God 
bestowed  on  those  who  were  supposed  to  be  remarkable  for  their  piety 
— the  "saints,"  and  this  fact  has  silently  and  imperceptibly  operated 
to  lead  men  to  doubt  the  reality  of  any  direct  divine  interposition  in 
human  affairs. 

(a)  The  change  in  the  world  on  the  subject  of  witchcraft  has  tended 
to  produce  this.  Formerly  the  belief  in  witchcraft  was  not  less  uni 
versal  than  the  belief  in  miracles,  and  the  belief  was  sustained  by  what 

*  It  can  not  be  improper  to  refer  to  the  fact  that  the  inventor  of  the  com 
pound  blow-pipe  in  chemistry  was  a  firm  believer  in  mesmerism,  spiritual 
ism,  spirit-rapping,  and  table-turning,  and  that  he  employed  no  small  part  of 
the  leisure  which  he  enjoyed  in  his  later  years  in  lecturing  on  these  subjects ; 
in  endeavoring  to  give  a  scientific  form  to  these  disclosures ;  and  in  the  me 
chanical  effort  to  construct  a  machine,  with  an  appropriate  dial,  by  which  the 
presence  of  the  supernatural  agency  could  be  indicated— somewhat  on  the 
principle  of  the  magnetic  telegraph. 


414  APPENDIX. 

was  regarded  as  the  highest  possible  evidence.  Faith  in  that  has,  to 
a  great  extent,  passed  away,  and  the  question  which  men  now  ask  is 
whether  the  belief  in  miracles  is  any  better  sustained. 

(6)  The  belief  in  magic  was  once  as  universal  as  the  belief  in  mira 
cles,  and  the  facts  were  supposed  to  be  sustained  by  irrefragable  evi 
dence.  That  belief  has  also  passed  away.  It  has  been  removed 
partly  by  the  application  of  science  to  the  real  explanation  of  the 
facts,  and  partly  by  the  knowledge  that  the  alleged  facts  were  merely 
the  results  of  cunning  and  imposture,  and  men,  in  like  manner,  ask 
the  question  whether  the  same  solution  is  not  to  be  applied  to  the 
whole  subject  of  miracles. 

(c)  Faith  in  necromancy,  sorcery,  and  divination  has  passed  away. 
The  world  has  come  to  believe  that  all  the  facts  that  were  connected 
with  such  claims  are  to  be  traced  to  a  hallucination  of  the  mind,  or  to 
well-executed  imposture,  and  they  ask  whether  the  same  solution  may 
not  be  applied  to  all  pretended  miracles. 

(d)  The  faith  of  the  world  in  regard  to  the  reappearance  of  the 
dead,  and  to  the  visitation  of  the  gods  to  earth,  has  passed  away,  and 
men  have  learned  to  ask  whether  the  same  result  is  not  to  follow  in 
regard  to  all  the  divine  manifestations  to  our  world,  and  to  the  alleged 
resurrection  of  Lazarus  and  of  Christ. 

(e)  The  belief  in  the  early  miracles  of  the  Christian  Church  subse 
quently  to  the  time  of  the  apostles  has  passed  away,  and  men  have 
learned  to  ask  significantly  what  should  make  a  difference  between 
those  miracles  and  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament. 

( f)  Faith  in  the  miracles  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  exists 
nowhere  outside  of  that  communion,  and  to  a  very  limited  extent, 
apart  from  the  priesthood,  within,  and  the  world  is  beginning  to  ask 
why  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  should  not  share  the  same  fate. 

Those  who  defend  the  miracles  of  the  Bible,  it  is  said,  admit  the 
fact  that  the  pretended  miracles  of  the  Egyptians  in  the  time  of 
Moses  were  false ;  that  the  miracles  of  the  early  Christian  Church 
were  false ;  that  the  miracles  of  the  Catholic  Church  are  false — that, 
in  fact,  men  have  often  been  imposed  upon  in  the  belief  of  such  won 
ders,  and  they  ask  why  should  not  the  principles  which  they  apply  so 
unsparingly  to  these  pretended  wonders  be  applied  to  all  claims  of 
miraculous  powers. 

(#)  There  has  been,  at  the  same  time,  a  vast  decline  of  priestly 
power  and  influence  tending  to  the  same  result.  The  world  has  come 
to  believe  that  alike  among  the  heathen,  and  in  the  early  Christian 
Church,  and  in  the  Roman  Catholic  communion,  the  belief  in  mira 
cles  has  been  kept  up,  in  a  good  measure,  by  the  influence  and  the 
arts  of  the  priesthood.  Outside  of  the  Catholic  Church  that  belief  is 


APPENDIX.  415 

now  universal  in  regard  to  the  pretended  miracles  in  that  Church,  and 
the  belief  that  the  credit  of  the  miracles  in  the  early  Church  was  to 
be  traced  to  priestly  power  has  become  nearly  universal. 

Priestly  power,  as  such,  is  fast  dying  away  in  the  world — alike 
among  the  heathen,  in  the  Roman  Catholic  portion  of  the  world,  in 
the  Greek  Church,  and  in  the  Protestant  world.  In  proportion  as 
science  advances,  and  the  world  becomes  acquainted  with  the  arts 
which  have  so  often  characterized  the  priesthood  of  all  religions,  the 
mere  power  of  a  priesthood  as  such  dies  away.  The  power  of  influ 
encing  men  by  forms  and  ceremonies ;  by  processions  and  benedic 
tions  ;  by  splendid  vestments  and  pomp ;  by  the  belief  that  truth 
flows  only  from  the  lips  of  an  anointed  priesthood  and  grace  from  their 
hands,  dies  out  among  men,  and  they  are  led  to  ask,  since  so  much  of 
religion  has  undeniably  owed  its  power  to  the  unfounded  claims  of  a 
priesthood,  whether  the  whole  of  it  can  not  be  resolved  into  such  a 
belief. 

It  may  be  true,  indeed,  that  the  real  influence  of  ministers  of  relig 
ion  is  advancing  in  other  forms,  and  is  keeping  pace  with  the  progress 
of  the  world,  but  it  is  not  as  priests,  or  in  virtue  of  any  supposed  he 
reditary  holiness,  or  of  any  superiority  over  other  men  as  intrusted 
with  the  power  of  pardoning  sin,  or  communicating  grace,  or  deliver 
ing  dogmas  to  mankind  to  be  received  on  their  authority,  but  it  is  as 
men  who  are  abreast  of  their  age  in  intelligence,  as  entitled  to  confi 
dence  from  their  moral  worth,  and  to  respect  for  their  learning. 
There  is  a  foundation  in  the  human  heart  for  respect  and  honor 
toward  the  ministers  of  religion  when  they  rely  for  their  influence  on 
these  things ;  all  other  respect  for  them  is  fast  dying  away,  and  with 
the  decline  of  that  profound  reverence  for  a  priesthood  that  character 
izes  this  age  as  distinguished  from  former  ages,  there  has  been  a  cor 
responding  decline  on  the  Avhole  subject  of  faith  in  the  supernatural 
and  the  marvelous.  Men  refuse  to  embrace  doctrines  and  dogmas  in 
religion  on  different  grounds  from  those  on  which  they  embrace  truth 
on  other  subjects,  not  by  a  reference  to  miracles,  and  signs,  and  won 
ders,  but  as  founded  on  reason,  and  as  commending  itself  to  their 
sober  sense  of  what  is  right  and  true. 

Perhaps  the  present  state  of  the  world  on  this  subject,  as  indica 
ting  an  existing  state  of  mind,  can  not  be  better  described  than  in  the 
following  passage  from  the  writer  to  whom  I  have  so  often  referred : 

"Generation  after  generation  the  province  of  the  miraculous  has 
contracted,  and  the  circle  of  skepticism  has  expanded.  Of  the  two 
great  divisions  of  these  events,  one  has  completely  perished.  Witch 
craft,  and  diabolical  possession,  and  diabolical  disease  have  long  since 
passed  into  the  region  of  fables.  To  disbelieve  them  was  at  first  the 


416  APPENDIX. 

eccentricity  of  a  few  isolated  thinkers  ;  it  was  then  the  distinction  of 
the  educated  classes  in  the  most  advanced  nations  ;  it  is  now  the  com 
mon  sentiment  of  all  classes  in  all  countries  in  Europe.  The  count 
less  miracles  that  were  once  associated  with  every  holy  relic  and  with 
every  village  shrine  have  rapidly  and  silently  disappeared.  Year  by 
year  the  incredulity  became  more  manifest,  even  when  the  theological 
profession  was  unchanged.  Their  numbers  continually  lessened,  until 
they  at  last  almost  ceased,  and  any  attempt  to  revive  them  has  been 
treated  with  a  general  and  undisguised  contempt.  The  miracles  of 
the  fathers  are  passed  over  with  an  incredulous  scorn  or  with  a  sig 
nificant  silence.  The  rationalistic  spirit  has  even  attempted  to  ex 
plain  away  those  Avhich  are  recorded  in  Scripture,  and  it  has  materi 
ally  altered  their  position  in  the  systems  of  theology.  In  all  countries, 
in  all  churches,  in  all  parties,  among  men  of  every  variety  of  character 
and  opinion,  we  have  found  the  tendency  existing.  In  each  nation 
its  development  has  been  a  measure  of  intellectual  activity,  and  has 
passed  in  regular  course  through  the  different  strata  of  society.  Dur 
ing  the  last  century  it  has  advanced  with  a  vastly  accelerated  rapidity ; 
the  old  lines  of  demarkation  have  been  every  where  obscured,  and  the 
spirit  of  Rationalism  has  become  the  great  centre  to  which  the  intel 
lect  of  Europe  is  manifestly  tending.  If  we  trace  the  progress  of  the 
movement  from  its  origin  to  the  present  day,  we  find  that  it  has  com 
pletely  altered  the  whole  aspect  and  complexion  of  religion.  When  it 
began,  Christianity  was  regarded  as  a  system  entirely  beyond  the 
range  and  scope  of  human  reason ;  it  was  impious  to  question ;  it  was 
impious  to  examine ;  it  was  impious  to  discriminate.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  was  visibly  instinct  with  the  supernatural.  Miracles  of  every 
order  and  degree  of  magnitude  were  flashing  forth  incessantly  from  all 
its  parts.  They  excited  no  skepticism  and  no  surprise.  The  miracu 
lous  element  pervaded  all  literature,  explained  all  difficulties,  conse 
crated  all  doctrines.  Every  unusual  phenomenon  was  immediately 
referred  to  a  supernatural  agency,  not  because  there  was  a  passion  for 
the  improbable,  but  because  such  an  explanation  seemed  far  more 
simple  and  easy  of  belief  than  the  obscure  theories  of  science. 

"In  the  present  day,  Christianity  is  regarded  as  a  system  which 
courts  the  strictest  investigation,  and  which,  among  many  other  func 
tions,  was  designed  to  vivify  and  stimulate  all  the  energies  of  man. 
The  idea  of  the  miraculous,  which  a  superficial  observer  might  have 
once  deemed  its  most  prominent  characteristic,  has  been  driven  from 
almost  all  its  intrenchments,  and  now  quivers  faintly  and  feebly 
through  the  mists  of  eighteen  hundred  years.''* 

II.  Such,  then,  being  the  facts  in  regard  to  the  change  of  belief  in 
*  Lecky,  History  of  Rationalism,  vol.  i.,  p.  104, 105. 


APPENDIX.  41-7 

the  world  on  the  subject  of  the  marvelous  and  the  supernatural,  and 
such  being  the  causes  by  which  this  change  is  to  be  explained,  the 
inquiry  meets  us  whether  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  can  not  be  ex 
plained  in  the  same  manner,  and  whether  they  may  not  in  like  man 
ner  take  their  place  with  the  illusions  and  deceptions  of  former  ages. 
It  is  clear  that  if  they  can  thus  be  explained,  and  if  there  is  no  stron 
ger  historical  evidence  in  their  favor  than  could  be  adduced  for  those 
things  which  have  been  referred  to,  they  will  soon,  in  the  estimation 
of  mankind,  take  the  same  place,  and  faith  in  the  supernatural  will 
wholly  cease  among  men.  Whether  they  can  thus  be  explained  is  the 
point  now  to  be  considered.  If  they  can  not  thus  be  explained,  then 
the  evidence  commonly  relied  on  for  their  support  will  be  unaffected 
by  the  changes  which  have  occurred  on  other  subjects,  and  will  remain 
in  all  the  force  attached  to  undisputed  evidence  on  other  well-attested 
historical  facts  in  the  past. 

(1.)  The  miracles  of  the  Bible  can  not  be  explained  by  the  opera 
tion  of  natural  laws,  or,  in  other  words,  can  not  be  brought  within  the 
range  of  natural  laws.  I  mean  by  this,  that,  if  the  facts  are  admitted, 
there  are  no  powers  of  nature  known  to  man  that  would  explain  or  ac 
count  for  them ;  that  is,  they  could  not  be  arranged  and  classified 
under  any  of  the  natural  sciences.  If  Lazarus  was  raised  from  the 
grave ;  if  Christ  rose  from  the  dead ;  if  the  blind  were  restored  to 
sight  by  a  word  or  a  touch,  there  are  no  laws  of  science — chemistry, 
natural  philosophy,  galvanism,  electricity,  or  magnetism  to  which  such 
facts  can  be  shown  to  belong ;  there  is  no  power  in  connection  with 
those  sciences  to  produce  such  effects  now ;  there  are  no  principles 
suggested  by  those  sciences  which  will  explain  them. 

On  this  point  I  made  the  following  remarks  in  the  Lecture  on  Mira 
cles,  which  it  seems  necessary  to  repeat  here,  in  order  that  a  connect 
ed  view  may  be  taken  of  the  subject : 

Science  has  not  advanced  so  far  as  to  explain  the  miracles  of  the 
New  Testament  on  any  known  principles,  as  it  has  in  these  matters, 
nor  has  it  made  any  approximation  to  it.  Nay,  just  so  far  as  it  has 
gone  it  has  demonstrated  that  those  miracles  can  not  be  explained  on 
any  principles  known,  or  likely  to  be  known,  to  science — gravitation, 
attraction,  repulsion,  electricity,  galvanism,  or  the  healing  properties 
of  vegetables  or  minerals.  The  chemist  does  not  open  the  eyes  of  the 
blind  by  a  touch ;  he  does  not  heal  the  sick  by  a  word ;  he  does  not 
raise  the  dead  by  the  blow-pipe  or  by  galvanism.  In  the  language  of 
Mr.  Mansel,  "The  advance  of  physical  science  tends  to  strengthen 
rather  than  to  weaken  our  conviction  of  the  supernatural  character  of 
the  Christian  miracles.  In  whatever  proportion  our  knowledge  of 
physical  causation  is  limited,  and  the  number  of  unknown  natural 

S2 


418  APPENDIX. 

agents  comparatively  large,  in  the  same  proportion  is  the  probability 
that  some  of  these  unknown  causes,  acting  in  some  unknown  manner, 
may  have  given  rise  to  the  alleged  marvels.  But  this  probability  di 
minishes  when  each  newly-discovered  agent,  as  its  properties  become 
known,  is  shown  to  be  inadequate  to  the  production  of  the  supposed 
effects,  and  as  the  residue  of  unknown  causes,  which  might  produce 
them,  becomes  smaller  and  smaller.  We  are  told,  indeed,  that  the 
*  inevitable  progress  of  research  must,  within  a  longer  or  shorter  pe 
riod,  unravel  all  that  seems  most  marvelous  ;'*  but  we  may  be  permit 
ted  to  doubt  the  relevancy  of  the  remark  to  the  present  case,  until  it 
has  been  shown  that  the  advance  of  science  has  in  some  degree  en 
abled  men  to  perform  the  miracles  performed  by  Christ.  When  the 
inevitable  progress  of  research  shall  have  enabled  men  of  modern  times 
to  give  sight  to  the  blind  with  a  touch,  to  still  tempests  with  a  word, 
to  raise  the  dead  to  life,  to  die  themselves,  and  to  rise  again,  we  may 
allow  that  the  same  causes  might  possibly  have  been  called  into  opera 
tion  ten  thousand  years  earlier  by  some  great  man  in  advance  of  his 
age.  But,  until  this  is  done,  the  unraveling  of  the  marvelous  in  other 
phenomena  only  serves  to  leave  these  works  in  their  solitary  grandeur, 
as  wrought  by  the  finger  of  God,  unapproached  and  unapproachable 
by  all  the  knowledge  and  all  the  power  of  man.  The  appearance  of  a 
comet  or  the  fall  of  an  aerolite  may  be  reduced  by  the  advance  of  sci 
ence  from  a  supposed  supernatural  to  a  natural  occurrence,  and  this 
reduction  furnishes  a  reasonable  presumption  that  other  phenomena 
of  a  like  character  will  in  time  meet  with  a  like  explanation.  But  the 
reverse  is  the  case  with  respect  to  those  phenomena  which  are  narrated 
as  produced  by  personal  agency.  In  proportion  as  the  science  of  to 
day  surpasses  that  of  former  generations,  so  is  the  improbability  that 
any  man  could  have  done  in  past  times,  by  natural  means,  works  which 
no  skill  of  the  present  age  is  able  to  imitate,  "f 

In  addition  to  these  observations,  I  would  now,  for  the  farther  illus 
tration  of  the  subject,  make  the  following  remarks  : 

(a)  If  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament  were  in  themselves  sus 
ceptible  of  explanation  in  this  manner,  it  is  plain  that  the  authors  of 
the  Bible,  or  those  who  wrought  the  miracles,  were  not,  in  fact,  so  far 
in  advance  of  their  own  age,  or  that  they  had  no  such  knowledge  of 
scientific  principles — of  the  laws  of  nature — as  to  enable  them  to  make 
use  of  this  knowledge  in  working  the  alleged  miracles.  There  were 
events  in  the  Middle  Ages,  in  connection  with  "  magic,"  which  seemed 
to  the  masses  of  men  to  be  miracles  ;  which  surpassed  all  their  power 
of  producing  or  comprehending  them ;  and  which  conveyed,  design 
edly  or  undesignedly,  to  the  multitudes  the  impression  that  those  who 
*  Essays  and  Reviews,  p.  109.  t  Aids  to  Faith,  p.  21,  22. 


APPENDIX.  419 

wrought  them  were  in  league  with  higher  intelligences,  or  were  en 
dowed  with  supernatural  powers.  Those  events  are  now  susceptible 
of  an  easy  and  natural  explanation,  as  has  been  shown  amply  by  Sir 
David  Brewster  in  his  work  on  "Magic."  Roger  Bacon,  for  exam 
ple,  was  so  far  in  advance  of  his  age  in  the  sciences,  that,  on  the 
ground  of  this,  he  might  readily  have  obtained  a  reputation  for  being 
able  to  work  miracles  ;  and  if  we  were  to  suppose  that  Roger  Bacon, 
or  any  of  his  contemporaries,  had  the  knowledge  which  is  now  pos 
sessed  by  those  skilled  in  chemistry ;  or  could  have  exhibited  the  won 
derful  and  sudden  transformations  of  matter  now  exhibited  in  the  la 
boratory  of  the  chemist ;  or  that  they  had  the  power  of  multiplying 
copies  of  books,  with  the  strictest  exactness,  almost  in  an  instant ;  or 
that  they  could  have  multiplied  accurate  impressions  of  the  human 
countenance,  or  of  hills,  and  vales,  and  trees,  and  animals,  by  the  ac 
tion  of  light ;  or  that  they  could  have  transmitted  thought  and  lan 
guage  in  a  moment  over  hills  and  vales,  across  rivers  and  along  the 
beds  of  oceans,  it  would  have  been  easy  for  such  men  to  have  estab 
lished  the  reputation  of  being  workers  of  miracles.  But,  apart  from 
all  other  considerations,  now,  the  authors  of  the  Bible  had  no  such 
pretensions  to  knowledge  in  advance  of  their  age.  They  were  not  in  a 
land  distinguished  for  science.  They  had  received  no  scientific  edu 
cation.  They  had,  so  far  as  appears,  no  scientific  genius.  They  had 
nothing  which  constitutes  the  "apparatus"  of  science  now.  All  ac 
counts  agree  in  the  fact  that  they  were  plain,  unlettered  men ;  nor  does 
any  thing  which  they  ever  said,  or  wrote,  or  did,  indicate  that  they 
had  any  acquaintance  whatever  with  even  the  very  lowest  rudiments 
of  scientific  knowledge. 

(6)  The  principles  of  science  can  not  be  so  applied  as  to  explain  the 
miracles  of  the  New  Testament.  Science  makes  no  approximation  to 
an  explanation. 

This  remark  is  especially  true  in  regard  to  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead,  and  is  of  special  importance,  because  a  single  case  of  resto 
ration  to  life  settles  the  whole  question.  If  Lazarus  was  raised 
from  the  dead,  the  Christian  religion  is  from  God.  Science  has 
settled  the  principle  so  that  it  is  now  an  admitted  axiom  among 
all  scientific  men  that  the  production  of  life  is  beyond  the  power 
of  mere  science.  Whatever  life  may  be,  and  whether  it  will  ever 
be  true  that  men  will  be  able  to  explain  and  define  what  it  is,  it  is 
reduced  to  a  certainty  that  men,  by  the  application  of  scientific  prin 
ciples,  can  not  produce  it.  No  approximation  has  been  made  to  the 
power  of  causing  it  to  exist  where  there  has  not  been  a  germ  or  an 
ovum,  or  where  it  does  not  already  exist,  though  suspended.  Animal 
cules  that  seemed  to  have  been  dead  for  ages,  and  that  may  be  dried 


420  APPENDIX. 

and  pounded,  may  be  made  to  revive  by  the  application  of  moisture ; 
a  grain  of  wheat  that  may  have  been  hidden  in  the  folds  of  an  Egyp 
tian  mummy  for  three  thousand  years  may  be  made  to  grow,  but  no 
power  of  man  can  originate  life ;  none  can  cause  it  to  exist  again  when 
it  has  become  extinct.  Until  that  is  done,  it  may  be  regarded  as 
settled  that  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament  can  not  be  explained 
by  the  application  of  the  principles  of  science.  If  such  a  thing  is 
claimed  as  possible,  we  may  at  least  demand  that  the  same  thing 
should  be  donfrnow  by  scientific  men ;  for  assuredly  it  can  not  be  pre 
tended  that  in  true  scientific  knowledge  the  apostles  were  superior  to 
the  scientific  men  of  this  generation.  If,  therefore,  it  could  be  shown, 
as  Eenan  supposed,  that  the  healing  of  Peter's  wife's  mother  could  be 
explained  by  some  power  of  mesmerism,  yet  we  have  a  right,  in  order 
to  set  aside  the  evidence  for  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament,  to  de 
mand  that  there  shall  be  some  unmistakable  act  of  raising  up  the  dead 
— where  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  death — as  in  the  case  of  Lazarus  and 
the  Savior ;  and,  to  make  the  argument  complete,  that  it  shall  be  done 
by  a  word — by  some  command  which  the  scientific  man  has  over  the 
dead,  and  the  grave,  and  the  invisible  world.  As  it  is  certain  that 
men  have  never  done  this,  and  as  it  is  certain  that  the  scientific  men 
of  this  age,  or  of  future  ages,  will  not  even  attempt  this,  it  may  be  re 
garded  as  settled  that  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament  can  not  be 
explained  by  the  application  of  any  principles  of  science,  or  can  not 
be  brought  under  the  range  of  natural  laws. 

(2.)  The  miracles  of  the  Bible  can  not  be  disposed  of  in  the  way  in 
which  the  belief  in  witchcraft,  necromancy,  and  sorcery  has  been. 
The  explanation  which  has  been  applied  to  these  things,  and  which 
has  so  entirely  modified  or  revolutionized  the  faith  of  mankind  on 
these  subjects,  can  not  be  applied  to  the  miracles  of  the  Bible.  In 
other  words,  we  can  not  take  the  explanations  ;  the  course  of  reason 
ing  ;  the  changes  produced  by  civilization,  and  the  results  of  calm  and 
sober  thinking  on  these  subjects,  by  which  so  material  a  change  has 
been  produced  in  the  faith  of  mankind  in  regard  to  these  matters,  and 
by  the  application  of  the  same  process  reach  the  same  results  in  re 
spect  to  the  miracles  of  the  Bible. 

This  is  a  very  material  point  in  the  argument ;  for  if  the  reasoning 
which  has  changed  the  faith  of  the  world  in  regard  to  the  marvelous 
and  the  supernatural  on  these  subjects  is  of  sufficient  force  to  change 
the  faith  of  the  world  in  all  that  is  supernatural,  including  the  mira 
cles  of  the  Bible  as  well  as  other  things,  then  it  is  manifest  that  faith 
in  miracles  will  soon  occupy  the  same  place  as  faith  in  witchcraft,  and 
necromancy,  and  sorcery ;  and  as  it  is  now  certain  that  the  faith  in 
witchcraft,  necromancy,  and  sorcery  which  was  once  held  in  the  world 


APPENDIX.  421 

can  not  be  restored  in  the  present  state  of  civilization,  and  still  less 
under  the  advanced  civilization  to  which  the  world  is  tending,  so,  if 
the  arguments  and  explanations  which  have  banished  the  belief  in 
witchcraft  from  the  world  can  be  legitimately  applied  to  the  miracles 
of  the  Bible,  it  will  follow  that  the  world  is  tending  rapidly  and  inev 
itably  to  the  highest  point  of  Kationalism,  where  all  faith  in  the  super 
natural  and  the  marvelous  shall  cease  among  men.  That  this  result 
is  desired  by  many  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  that  it  is  secretly  believed 
by  many  that  it  will  be  so  there  can  be  as  little  doubt ;  and  that  the 
tendency  of  the  statements  on  the  causes  which  have  led  to  the  chan 
ges  in  the  opinions  of  the  world  on  these  subjects,  as  they  are  found  in 
the  histories  of  Rationalism,  is  to  lead  to  the  apprehension  that  this 
will  be  so,  there  can  be  as  little  doubt.  No  man  can  rise  up  from  a 
history  of  Rationalism,  and  of  the  changes  which  have  occurred  in  re 
gard  to  the  belief  of  mankind  in  the  marvelous,  without  asking  the 
question  whether  the  legitimate  result  of  all  this  is  not  to  remove  all 
faith  in  the  marvelous  and  the  supernatural  from  the  minds  of  men. 

What,  then,  is  witchcraft?  What  is  sorcery,  divination,  necro 
mancy  ?  By  what  means  has  the  faith  of  mankind  in  these  things 
been  shaken  ?  Are  the  same  processes  of  unbelief  applicable  to  the 
miracles  of  the  Bible  ? 

Witchcraft,  divination,  sorcery,  necromancy,  though  they  differ  spe 
cifically  from  each  other,  yet  so  far  partake  of  the  same  general  na 
ture  that  they  can  be  grouped  together,  and  they  so  far  resemble  each 
other,  and  so  far  depend  on  the  same  things,  that  the  same  explana 
tion  in  regard  to  their  origin,  their  prevalence,  and  their  removal  from 
the  faith  of  mankind  will  be  found  applicable  to  them  all.  It  would 
be  impossible  that  one  should  retain  its  hold  on  the  faith  of  mankind 
if  all  the  others,  or  any  of  the  others,  should  be  proved  to  be  a  delusion 
and  an  imposture.  The  question  is  whether  the  miracles  of  the  Bible 
will  share  the  same  destiny. 

I  have  stated  the  difficulty  on  this  subject  in  the  Lecture  on  Mira 
cles  (p.  161-165),  and  perhaps  so  stated  it  as  to  have  led  to  the  in 
quiry — perhaps  a  painful  inquiry — on  the  minds  of  some,  whether  all 
that  is  said  there  might  not  also  be  said  about  miracles.  As  there 
can  be  no  desire  of  concealment  in  a  candid  inquiry  after  truth  on 
any  subject,  and  as  it  is  important  to  have  the  difficulty  fairly  before 
the  mind,  I  shall  copy  here  what  was  said  on  the  subject  in  the  Lec 
ture. 

A  more  material  and  important  question  still  is,  Whether  there  is 
any  stronger  evidence  in  favor  of  miracles  than  there  is  in  favor  of 
witchcraft,  of  sorcery,  of  the  reappearance  of  the  dead,  of  ghosts,  of 
apparitions  ?  Is  not  the  evidence  in  favor  of  these  as  strong  as  any 


422  APPENDIX. 

that  can  be  adduced  in  favor  of  miracles?  Have  not  these  things 
been  matters  of  universal  belief?  In  what  respects  is  the  evidence  in 
favor  of  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  stronger  than  that  which  can  be  ad 
duced  in  favor  of  witchcraft  and  sorcery  ?  Does  it  differ  in  nature 
and  in  degree ;  and  if  it  differs,  is  it  not  in  favor  of  witchcraft  and 
sorcery  ?  Has  not  the  evidence  in  favor  of  the  latter  been  derived 
from  as  competent  and  credible  witnesses  ?  Has  it  not  been  brought 
to  us  from  those  who  saw  the  facts  alleged  ?  Has  it  not  been  subject 
ed  to  a  close  scrutiny  in  courts  of  justice — to  cross-examinations — to 
tortures  ?  Has  It  not  convinced  those  of  highest  legal  attainments  ; 
those  accustomed  to  sift  testimony ;  those  who  understood  the  true 
principles  of  evidence  ?  Has  not  the  evidence  in  favor  of  witchcraft 
and  sorcery  had,  what  the  evidence  in  favor  of  miracles  has  not  had, 
the  advantage  of  strict  judicial  investigation,  and  been  subjected  to 
trial,  where  evidence  should  be,  before  courts  of  law  ?  Have  not  the 
most  eminent  judges  in  the  most  civilized  and  enlightened  courts  of 
Europe  and  America  admitted  the  force  of  such  evidence,  and  on  the 
ground  of  it  committed  great  numbers  of  innocent  persons  to  the  gal 
lows  or  to  the  stake  ? 

An  extract  or  two  from  Lecky,  in  his  History  of  Eationalism  in 
Europe,  will  show  the  nature  of  the  difficulty  and  the  force  of  the  ob 
jection,  though  the  remarks  made  by  him  are  in  no  way  designed  to 
support  the  cause  of  infidelity:  "Eor  more  than  fifteen  hundred 
years  it  was  universally  believed  that  the  Bible  established,  in  the 
clearest  manner,  the  reality  of  the  crime  [of  witchcraft],  and  that  an 
amount  of  evidence,  so  varied  and  so  ample  as  to  preclude  the  very 
possibility  of  doubt,  attested  its  continuance  and  its  prevalence.  The 
clergy  denounced  it  with  all  the  emphasis  of  authority.  The  legisla 
tors  of  almost  every  land  enacted  laws  for  its  punishment.  Acute 
judges,  whose  lives  were  spent  in  sifting  evidence,  investigated  the 
question  on  countless  occasions,  and  condemned  the  accused.  Tens 
of  thousands  of  victims  perished  by  the  most  agonizing  and  protracted 
torments  without  exciting  the  faintest  compassion.  Nations  that 
were  completely  separated  by  position,  by  interests,  and  by  character, 
on  this  one  question  were  united.  In  almost  every  province  of  Ger 
many,  but  especially  in  those  where  clerical  influence  predominated, 
the  persecution  raged  with  fearful  intensity.  Seven  thousand  victims 
are  said  to  have  been  burned  at  Treves,  six  hundred  by  the  single 
Bishop  of  Bamberg,  and  eight  hundred  in  a  single  year  in  the  bishop 
ric  of  Wurtzburg.  In  France,  decrees  were  passed  on  the  subject  by 
the  Parliament  of  Paris,  Toulouse,  Bordeaux,  liheims,  Kouen,  Dijon, 
and  Rennes,  and  they  were  all  followed  by  a  harvest  of  blood.  At 
Toulouse,  the  seat  of  the  Inquisition,  four  hundred  persons  perished 


APPENDIX.  423 

for  sorcery  at  a  single  execution,  and  fifty  at  Douay  in  a  single  year. 
Remy,  a  judge  of  Nancy,  boasted  that  he  had  put  to  death  eight  hund 
red  witches  in  sixteen  years.  The  executions  that  took  place  at  Paris 
in  a  few  months  were,  in  the  emphatic  words  of  an  old  writer,  '  almost 
infinite.'  The  fugitives  who  escaped  to  Spain  were  there  seized  and 
burned  by  the  Inquisition.  In  Italy  a  thousand  persons  were  execut 
ed  in  a  single  year  in  the  province  of  Como ;  in  the  other  parts  of  the 
country  the  severity  of  the  inquisitors  at  last  created  an  absolute  re 
bellion.  In  Geneva  five  hundred  alleged  witches  were  executed  in 
three  months ;  forty-eight  were  burned  at  Constance  or  Ravensburg, 
and  eighty  in  the  little  town  of  Valery,  in  Savoy.  The  Church  of 
Rome  proclaimed  in  every  way  that  was  in  her  power  the  reality  and 
the  continued  existence  of  the  crime. " 

The  writer  from  whom  I  have  made  this  extract  adds:  "It  is,  I 
think,  difficult  to  examine  the  subject  with  impartiality,  without  com 
ing  to  the  conclusion  that  the  historical  evidence  establishing  the  real 
ity  of  witchcraft  is  so  vast  and  so  varied  that  it  is  impossible  to  disbe 
lieve  it  without  what  on  other  subjects  we  should  deem  the  most  ex 
traordinary  rashness.  The  defenders  of  the  belief,  who  were  often 
men  of  great  and  distinguished  talent,  maintained  that  there  was  no 
fact  in  all  history  more  fully  attested,  and  that  to  reject  it  would  be  to 
strike  at  the  root  of  all  historical  evidence  of  the  miraculous.  The 
subject  was  examined  in  tens  of  thousands  of  cases,  in  almost  every 
country  of  Europe,  by  tribunals  which  included  the  acutest  lawyers 
and  ecclesiastics  of  the  age  on  the  scene  at  the  time  when  the  alleged 
facts  had  taken  place,  and  with  the  assistance  of  innumerable  sworn 
witnesses.  The  judges  had  no  motive  whatever  to  desire  the  con 
demnation  of  the  accused ;  and  as  conviction  would  be  followed  by 
a  fearful  death,  they  had  the  strongest  motives  to  exercise  their  pow 
er  with  caution  and  deliberation.  In  our  day  it  may  be  said  with 
confidence  that  it  would  be  altogether  impossible  for  such  an  amount 
of  evidence  to  accumulate  round  a  conception  which  had  no  basis  in 
fact.  If  we  considered  witchcraft  probable,-  a  hundredth  part  of  the 
evidence  we  possess  would  have  placed  it  beyond  the  region  of  doubt. 
If  it  were  a  natural,  but  a  very  improbable  fact,  our  reluctance  to 
believe  it  would  have  been  completely  stifled  by  the  multiplicity  of 
the  proofs."* 

In  reference  to  this  point,  I  now  submit  the  following  remarks  : 
(a)  Witchcraft,  sorcery,  divination,  necromancy,  all  depend  essen 
tially  on  one  idea — the  idea  of  a  compact  with  created  spirits ;  not 
with  God.     The  idea  is  always  that  of  a  compact,  of  an  understand 
ing,  or  of  an  alliance  for  certain  purposes,  and  the  accomplishing  of 
*  See  Lefky,  History  of  Rationalism  iu  Europe,  vol.  i.,  p.  28,  34,  30,  87,  38,  39. 


424  APPENDIX. 

certain  things  to  which  the  unaided  human  powers  are  inadequate, 
but  which  may  be  quite  within  the  range  of  the  power  of  such  invisi 
ble  beings.  Thus,  in  necromancy,  the  foundation  of  all  that  is  im 
plied  in  it  is  a  desire — that  desire  so  natural  to  man — to  penetrate  the 
future.  The  knowledge  necessary  for  this  purpose  is  not  in  the  power 
of  the  most  gifted  man  among  the  living,*  but  it  is  supposed  that  it 
must  be  in  the  possession  of  the  dead — of  those  who  now  reside  in  the 
invisible  world,  and  that  a  compact  may  be  made  with  them  by  which 
that  knowledge  may  be  imparted  to  those  who  are  parties  in  the  agree 
ment.  Thus,  also,  in  divination,  the  idea  is  essentially  the  same.  It 
is  defined  by  Webster  to  be  "a  foretelling  of  future  events,  or  discov 
ering  things  secret  or  obscure,  by  the  aid  of  superior  beings,  or  by  oth 
er  than  human  means."  "The  ancient  heathen  philosophers,"  says 
he,  "  divided  divination  into  two  kinds,  natural  and  artificial.  Natu 
ral  divination  was  supposed  to  be  effected  by  a  kind  of  inspiration  or 
divine  afflatus ;  artificial  divination  was  effected  by  certain  rites,  ex 
periments,  or  obsservations,  as  by  sacrifices,  cakes,  flour,  wine, "etc. 
The  main  idea  was,  that  there  was  some  aid  derived  from  spirits  supe 
rior  to  man  with  whom  this  knowledge  was,  and  from  whom  it  could 
be  obtained  by  favored  persons  by  compact,  or  by  the  performance  of 
certain  rites  of  homage  or  honor  rendered  to  them. 

The  same  idea  was  at  the  foundation  of  all  that  there  was  in  witch 
craft — a  subject  in  its  bearing  on  the  matter  before  us  of  much  more 
importance  than  either  necromancy,  divination,  or  sorcery.  Few  per 
sons,  Rationalists  or  skeptics,  would  now  refer  either  to  necromancy, 
divination,  or  sorcery  as  having  any  evidence  in  their  favor  which 
would  seriously  affect  the  evidence  in  regard  to  miraculous  events ; 
the  subject  of  Avitchcraft,  however,  as  we  have  seen,  does  materially 
affect  the  whole  question  of  evidence,  and  particularly  the  evidence  in 
regard  to  supernatural  events,  since  the  proof  of  witchcraft  was 
brought  before  courts  sitting  in  judgment  on  the  very  cases  ;  since 
that  proof  was  so  thoroughly  examined  by  men  learned  in  the  law,  and 
accustomed  to  sift  evidence ;  since  the  alleged  facts  were  supposed  to 
be  established  by  incontrovertible  evidence ;  since  such  trials  involved 
the  question  of  life  or  death ;  and  since  so  many  innocent  persons 
were  actually  put  to  death  on  the  ground  of  such  evidence. 

A  witch  is  defined  by  Webster  to  be  "  a  woman  who,  by  compact 
with  the  devil,  practices  sorcery  or  enchantment."  The  essential  idea 
always  is  that  of  a  compact  or  agreement  with  the  devil,  or  with  evil 
spirits,  by  whose  aid  things  are  done  which  are  beyond  the  natural 
power  of  those  who  practiced  witchcraft,  or  which  could  not  be  pro- 

*  For  an  illustration  of  this  thought  I  may  be  permitted  to  refer  to  the  Lec 
ture  on  Prophecy— Lecture  VI. 


APPENDIX.  425 

duced  by  natural  laws,  and  in  which  the  acts,  therefore,  are,  so  far, 
miraculous  or  supernatural.  Witchcraft,  however,  is  NEVER  associ 
ated  with  the  idea  of  divine  help  or  divine  power.  It  never  implies  a 
compact  with  God.  It  is  never  supposed  that  what  is  done  is  done  by 
his  power.  It  is  always  something  within  the  range  of  beings  inferior 
to  God,  but  superior  to  man.  It  is,  in  this  respect,  wholly  distin 
guished  from  the  idea  of  a  miracle  properly  so  called,  where,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  idea  is  that  of  an  event  where  the  only  antecedent  is 
the  will  and  power  of  God. 

The  following  things,  therefore,  enter  into  the  idea  of  witchcraft, 
and  in  getting  rid  of  witchcraft  by  the  process  of  Rationalism,  the 
world  has  delivered  itself  from  these,  and  these  only:  (1.)  There  is  a 
compact  with  some  spirit  or  spirits  inferior  to  God,  but  superior  to 
man.  (2.)  The  spirit  with  which  the  compact  is  made  is  always  a 
bad,  or  an  evil  spirit — as  we  never  associate  the  idea  of  witchcraft 
with  a  good  "  demon,"  or  with  a  holy  angel.  (3.)  The  person  who  is 
supposed  to  make  the  compact,  or  who  is  competent  to  enter  into  it, 
is  commonly  believed  to  be  a  woman,  and  usually  an  old  woman.  If 
there  has  been  a  belief  in  wizards,  it  has  been  rare,  and  the  common 
idea  in  such  a  case  is  merely  that  of  a  juggler,  a  conjuror,  or  an  en 
chanter.  (4.)  The  matter  which  pertains  to  witchcraft  is  usually  some 
trifling  matter;  some  petty  annoyance ;  some  small  injury  done  to  prop 
erty  ;  some  disease  brought  upon  cattle ;  rarely,  if  ever,  any  thing  that 
terminates  in  death.  It  never  has  respect  to  a  work  of  beneficence  or 
mercy ;  never  is  employed  in  healing  diseases ;  never  is  alleged  to  be 
sufficient  to  give  sight  to  the  blind ;  never  lays  claim  to  the  power  of 
raising  the  dead.  In  these  respects,  also,  it  is  distinguished  by  broad 
lines  of  demarkation  from  all  proper  ideas  of  a  miracle. 

(£)  The  alleged  facts  in  witchcraft  were  usually  such  as  could,  and 
did  occur,  under  the  operation  of  natural  causes.  All  the  injuries 
done ;  all  the  diseases  inflicted ;  all  the  annoyances  employed ;  all  the 
calamities  that  fell  upon  cattle  or  upon  men ;  all  the  blightings  of  the 
harvest ;  all  that  was  involved  in  the  idea  of  pinching  or  burning — of 
palsy,  or  of  withered  arms  or  hands,  or  a  shriveled  skin — all  these  are 
things  which  do  occur  in  the  world  with  no  necessity  of  supposing  any 
intervention  of  superior  beings.  Not  one  of  them  implies,  of  neces 
sity,  the  agency  of  supernatural  pOAver ;  not  one  of  them,  as  a  fact,  lies 
beyond  the  range  of  explanation  from  natural  causes.  They  are, 
therefore,  as  facts,  wholly  without  the  range  of  miracles. 

(c)  The  facts  in  the  alleged  case  of  witchcraft  are  commonly  easily 
established,  and  there  was  no  difficulty  in  proving  them  in  the  courts  ; 
in  the  matter  of  miracles  the  main  difficulty  is  in  regard  to  the  facts 
themselves — whether  the  sun  and  moon  actually  stood  still  at  the  com- 


426  APPENDIX. 

mand  of  Joshua ;  whether  the  lame  man  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda  was 
actually  healed ;  whether  Lazarus  was  actually  dead,  and  was  raised 
from  the  dead ;  whether  the  Lord  Jesus  actually  came  to  life  again 
after  he  had  been  put  to  death  on  the  cross.  But  the  alleged  facts  as 
pertaining  to  witchcraft  are  such  as  may  be  easily  established — that 
is,  what  witches  are  accused  of  doing  may  be  matter  of  clear  and  defi 
nite  proof.  That  a  person  is  afflicted  with  some  form  of  disease ;  that 
property  is  destroyed ;  that  mischief  has  occurred  in  regard  to  a  man's 
cattle,  or  that  there  may  be  some  form  of  prevalent  disease  among 
them ;  that  grain  about  to  ripen  may  be  suddenly  blighted  in  the 
field — all  these  may  be  points  of  fact  that  could  be  easily  established, 
and  about  which  there  need  be  no  doubt. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  point,  we  may  take  the  case  of  Richard 
III. ,  as  it  is  stated  in  history,  and  as  it  is  represented  by  Shakspeare. 
The  scene  is  described  by  Mr.  Hume  (History  of  England,  vol.  ii., 
p.  1 74)  in  the  following  manner : 

"The  Duke  of  Gloucester  was  capable  of  committing  the  most 
bloody  and  treacherous  murders  with  the  utmost  coolness  and  in 
difference.  On  taking  his  place  at  the  council-table,  he  appeared  in 
the  easiest  and  most  jovial  humor  imaginable.  He  seemed  to  indulge 
himself  in  familiar  conversation  with  the  counselors  before  they 
should  enter  on  business ;  and,  having  paid  some  compliments  to 
Morton,  bishop  of  Ely,  on  the  good  and  early  strawberries  which  he 
raised  in  his  garden  at  Holborn,  he  begged  the  favor  of  having  a  dish 
of  them,  which  that  prelate  immediately  dispatched  a  servant  to  bring 
to  him.  The  Protector  then  left  the  council,  as  if  called  away  by  some 
other  business  ;  but,  soon  after  returning,  with  an  angry  and  inflamed 
countenance,  he  asked  them  what  punishment  those  deserved  that  had 
plotted  against  his  life,  who  was  so  nearly  related  to  the  king,  and  was 
intrusted  with  the  administration  of  government  ?  Hastings  replied 
that  they  merited  the  punishment  of  traitors.  These  traitors,  cried 
the  Protector,  are  the  sorceress,  my  brother's  wife,  and  Jane  Shore, 
his  mistress,  with  others,  their  associates:  see  to  what  a  condition 
they  have  reduced  me  by  their  incantations  and  witchcraft :  upon 
which  he  laid  bare  his  arm,  all  shriveled  and  decayed.  But  the  coun 
selors,  who  knew  that  this  infirmity  had  attended  him  from  his  birth, 
looked  on  each  other  with  amazement,  and  above  all  Lord  Hastings, 
who,  as  he  had,  since  Edward's  death,  engaged  in  an  intrigue  with 
Jane  Shore,  was  naturally  anxious  concerning  the  issue  of  these  extra 
ordinary  proceedings.  Certainly,  my  lord,  said  he,  if  they  be  guilty 
of  these  crimes  they  deserve  the  severest  punishment.  And  do  you 
reply  to  me,  exclaimed  the  Protector,  with  your  ifs  and  your  ands  ? 
You  are  the  chief  abettor  of  that  witch  Shore !  You  are  vourself  a 


APPENDIX.  427 

traitor ;  and  I  swear  by  St.  Paul  that  I  will  not  dine  before  your  head 
be  brought  me.  He  struck  the  table  with  his  hand;  armed  men 
rushed  in  at  the  signal ;  the  counselors  were  thrown  into  the  utmost 
consternation ;  and  one  of  the  guards,  as  if  by  accident  or  mistake, 
aimed  a  blow  with  a  poll-axe  at  Lord  Stanley,  who,  aware  of  the  dan 
ger,  slunk  under  the  table ;  and  though  he  saved  his  life,  received  a 
severe  wound  in  the  head,  in  the  Protector's  presence.  Hastings  was 
seized,  was  hurried  away,  and  instantly  beheaded  on  a  timber-log, 
which  lay  in  the  court  of  the  Tower." 

Shakspeare  describes  the  scene  in  the  following  words  : 

"  Gloucester.  I  pray  you  all,  tell  me  what  they  deserve 
That  do  conspire  my  death  with  devilish  plots 
Of  damned  witchcraft ;  and  that  have  prevailed 
Upon  my  body  with  their  hellish  charms  ? 

Hastings.  The  tender  love  I  bear  your  grace,  my  lord, 
Makes  me  most  forward  in  this  noble  presence 
To  doom  the  offenders :  Whosoe'er  they  be, 
I  say,  my  lord,  they  have  deserved  death. 

Gloucester.  Then  be  your  eyes  the  witness  of  their  evil, 
Look  how  I  am  bewitched ;  behold  mine  arm 
Is,  like  a  blasted  sapling,  withered  up : 
And  this  is  Edward's  wife,  that  monstrous  witch, 
Consorted  with  that  harlot,  strumpet  Shore, 
That  by  their  witchcraft  thus  have  marked  me." 

Richard  HI.,  Act  iii.,  Scene  iv. 

Now,  about  \hefact  of  the  withered  arm,  there  could  have  been  no 
doubt.  The  evidence  was  at  hand.  No  one  would  call  it  in  question  ; 
no  one  would  dare  to  dispute  it.  That  fact  could  have  been  proved 
before  any  court  of  justice  as  clearly  as  any  of  the  facts  to  which  Mr. 
Lecky  refers  when  he  says,  "The  subject  [of  witchcraft]  was  exam 
ined  in  tens  of  thousands  of  cases,  in  almost  every  country  of  Europe, 
by  tribunals  which  included  the  acutest  lawyers  and  ecclesiastics  of  the 
age  on  the  scene  at  the  time  when  the  alleged  facts  had  taken  place, 
and  with  the  assistance  of  innumerable  sworn  witnesses." 

(c?)  The  main  point,  therefore,  in  witchcraft — the  point  on  which 
the  whole  turned,  and  on  which  it  differed  from  all  the  questions  con 
nected  with  miracles,  was  in  CONNECTING  the  accused  person  with  THE 
FACT  ;  in  showing  that  the  accused  person  was  the  cause  of  it,  or  the 
author  of  it.  Thus,  in  the  case  of  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  the  point 
on  which  the  whole  turned  was  not  the  fact  that  the  arm  of  the  duke 
was  dried  up,  or  was  shriveled — for  of  that  there  was  no  doubt,  but  it 
was  whether  this  had  been  caused  by  the  wife  of  Edward  and  Jane 
Shore.  That  the  duke  affirmed ;  that  would  have  been  the  point  in 
a  court  of  justice  ;  that  was  the  only  point  that  would  have  any  bear 
ing  on  the  question  of  witchcraft.  That  point — the  connection  of  the 


428  APPENDIX. 

accused  persons  with  the  alleged  and  undoubted  facts — ivas  the  point 
which  was  before  the  courts — the  point  on  which  so  many  hundreds 
and  thousands  were  condemned  to  the  flames. 

And  yet  how  could  that  point  be  properly  brought  before  a  court  of 
justice  ?  What  evidence  could  there  be  that  would  bear  on  it  ? 

It  is  evident  that,  in  this  circumstance,  there  was  all  that  was  neces 
sary  for  wide-spread  illusion,  imposture,  and  wrong ;  for  the  indul 
gence  of  all  that  there  was  in  a  community  of  suspicion,  malignity, 
and  hatred  against  particular  individuals ;  all  that  could  be  devised 
to  keep  up  the  faith  of  a  community  in  the  marvelous ;  all  that  was 
needful  to  feed  and  satisfy  the  desire  for  the  belief  in  invisible  influ 
ences,  and  to  perpetuate  a  prevalent  superstition.  For  what  was  de 
manded  in  the  case  was  not  the  proof  of  certain  facts  that  might  be 
the  proper  subject  of  testimony,  but  the  connecting  of  certain  obnox 
ious  persons  with  those  facts ;  and  as  soon  and  as  far  as  the  popular 
idea  connected  such  facts  with  a  certain  class  of  persons — as  aged  fe 
males — there  would  be  no  lack  of  witnesses  to  testify  to  such  a  con 
nection. 

It  is  difficult  to  account  for  popular  illusions ;  for  the  fact  that  a 
whole  community  will  be  affected  with  such  an  illusion  at  the  same 
time ;  that  it  may  influence  all  classes  of  persons ;  that  it  will  consti 
tute  the  characteristic  of  a  certain  period  or  a  certain  land ;  that  it 
will,  for  the  time,  break  down  all  the  ordinary  and  sober  rules  of 
thinking,  and  override  all  that  is  sacred  in  truth,  and  solemn  in  the 
forms  of  oaths.  It  would  be  easy  to  adduce  now,  in  any  court  of  jus 
tice,  almost  innumerable  witnesses,  of  most  respectable  character,  that 
would  testify  on  oath  to  the  alleged  facts  in  regard  to  table-moving 
and  spirit-rapping.  The  Avitnesses  of  these  alleged  facts  would  not  by 
any  means  be  found  altogether  or  mainly  among  the  humblest  ranks, 
or  the  most  ignorant  in  a  community,  nor  among  those  who  have  no 
proper  idea  of  the  solemnity  of  an  oath,  or  who  are  ignorant  on  the 
subject  of  evidence.  Judges,  lawyers,  merchants,  professors  of  chem 
istry,  clergymen  —  men  profoundly  learned  in  the  sciences,  could  be 
found  in  large  numbers  Avho  would  testify  to  the  reality  of  the  facts, 
and  who  would  do  it  with  no  ascertainable  intention  of  imposing  on 
mankind. 

It  matters  little  what  is  the  thing  that  thus  becomes  the  subject  of 
popular  illusion,  and  it  is  to  be  admitted  that  if  the  miracles  of  the 
New  Testament  could  be  brought  under  this  idea,  it  would  not  be  less 
difficult  to  establish  their  reality  than  to  establish  the  facts  about 
witchcraft  and  spirit-rapping.  Macaulay,  in  his  History  of  England, 
refers  to  an  epidemic  of  that  nature  which  followed  the  successful 
effort  of  Titus  Gates  to  excite  universal  alarm  in  England  in  regard  to 


APPENDIX.  429 

the  plot  to  murder  the  king  [Charles  II.]  ;  to  burn  the  city  of  London  ; 
to  revolutionize  the  kingdom,  and  to  restore  it  to  the  dominion  of  the 
Papacy.  "  Every  person,"  says  he,  "  well  read  in  history  must  have 
observed  that  depravity  has  its  temporary  modes,  which  come  in  and 
go  out  like  modes  of  dress  and  upholstery.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether,  in  our  country,  any  man  ever  before  the  year  1678  invented 
and  related  on  oath  a  circumstantial  history,  altogether  fictitious,  of  a 
treasonable  plot,  for  the  purpose  of  making  himself  important  by  de 
stroying  men  who  had  given  him  no  provocation.  But  in  the  year 
1678  this  execrable  crime  became  the  fashion,  and  continued  to  be  so 
during  the  twenty  years  which  followed.  Preachers  designated  it  as 
our  peculiar  national  sin,  and  prophesied  that  it  would  draw  on  us 
some  awful  national  judgment.  Legislators  proposed  new  punish 
ments  of  terrible  severity  for  this  new  atrocity.  It  was  not,  however, 
found  necessary  to  resort  to  those  punishments.  The  fashion  changed  ; 
and  during  the  last  century  and  a  half  there  has  perhaps  not  been  a 
single  instance  of  this  particular  kind  of  wickedness."* 

Any  explanation  which  will  account  for  a  popular  illusion  or  a 
prevalent  superstition  will  account  for  all  the  phenomena  of  witch 
craft.  The  power  of  such  an  illusion  has  often  been  manifested  in  the 
world ;  perhaps  no  one  has  satisfactorily  explained  the  causes.  The 
effect  of  it  is  easily  understood.  It  is  a  species  of  insanity.  It  indis 
poses  the  mind  for  calm  and  sober  thought.  It  gives  reality  in  the 
view  of  the  mind  to  that  which  is  desired.  It  blunts  the  moral  sense, 
and  dims  the  perception  of  truth,  and  perverts  all  just  notions  of  testi 
mony.  It  gives  reality  in  the  view  of  the  mind  to  that  which  is  the 
creation  of  the  imagination,  and,  under  the  force  of  the  illusion,  anni 
hilates  for  the  time  all  the  ordinary  feelings  of  kindness  and  humanity. 
It  will  lead  to  the  endurance  of  suffering — to  the  spirit  of  martyrdom 
— on  the  part  of  those  who  embrace  the  illusion,  and  it  will  make  them 
regardless  of  the  severest  sufferings  of  those — though  of  the  tenderest 
years,  and  of  the  gentle  sex — on  whom  the  suspicion  falls.  To  pity 
them  in  their  tortures  would  be  a  crime ;  to  aggravate  their  sufferings 
would  be  a  merit.  In  witchcraft  it  would  be  a  crime  of  the  highest 
nature  to  pity  those  who  are  in  league  with  the  devil ;  to  punish  them 
is  to  punish  the  devil  himself,  and  no  amount  of  suffering  could  be 
beyond  his  desert. 

(e)  It  is  apparent,  therefore,  that  there  is  a  broad  line  of  distinction 
between  the  miracles  of  the  Bible,  and  witchcraft,  necromancy,  sorce 
ry,  and  divination,  and  that  the  explanation  which  Avould  meet  the  one 
would  not  affect  the  other.  It  is  apparent,  also,  that  in  the  one  case 
— the  case  of  witchcraft,  necromancy,  and  sorcery,  there  may  be  a 
*  History  of  England,  vol.  iv.,  p.  155. 


430  APPENDIX. 

change  in  the  public  mind  that  will  effectually  banish  all  belief  in  these 
things,  that  will  not  necessarily,  or  in  fact,  affect  the  public  faith  in 
miracles.  That  state  of  the  public  mind — that  phenomenon — is,  in 
fact,  reached  now.  The  progress  of  Rationalism  has  been  such  for 
the  past  hundred  years  as  almost  entirely  to  banish  all  belief  in  witch 
craft  and  necromancy  from  the  world ;  it  has  not  been  shown  that  the 
change  of  mind  on  that  subject  has  in  reality  affected  the  faith  of  man 
on  the  subject  of  miracles,  or  that  they  have,  in  fact,  reasoned  from 
the  one  to  the  other.  Indeed,  it  may  be  assumed  as  undoubtedly  true 
that  those  who  have  become  skeptical  in  this  age  on  the  subject  of 
miracles  are  not  conscious  to  themselves  that  they  have  been  led  to  re 
ject  the  evidence  for  miracles  because  they  have  seen  reason  to  reject 
the  belief  in  witchcraft,  or  because  the  sentiments  of  the  world  have 
changed  on  that  subject.  This  fact  I  adverted  to  in  the  Lecture  on 
Miracles,  and  I  can  not  but  regard  it  as  a  remarkable  fact.  I  do  not 
know  that  even  skeptics  in  religion,  or  Eationalists  in  any  form,  have 
urged  this  as  an  objection  to  the  faith  in  miracles,  or  have  stated  it  as 
a  proposition,  as  indicating  their  own  state  of  mind  on  the  subject, 
that  because  witchcraft,  necromancy,  and  sorcery  are  delusions,  there 
fore  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  and  all  pretended  miracles  are  false. 
The  world  at  large  would  not  see  any  connection  between  such  prem 
ises  and  such  a  conclusion.  Skeptics  themselves  would  perceive  that 
the  world  Avould  not  admit  the  force  of  such  reasoning.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  no  such  conclusion  has  been  reached  from  these  premises.  So 
far  as  appears,  the  faith  of  mankind  in  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  has 
not  been  affected  by  the  change  which  has  occurred  in  regard  to  the 
belief  in  witchcraft,  necromancy,  and  divination.  The  change  advert 
ed  to,  especially  in  regard  to  witchcraft,  is  a  change  which  has  occur 
red  in  the  Church  not  less  than  in  the  world ;  for  the  belief  in  witch 
craft  pervaded  the  whole  Church,  Catholic  and  Protestant  alike,  two 
centuries  ago,  and  the  Church,  as  is  often  urged  by  infidels,  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  was  most  firm  in  the  belief  of  witchcraft,  and  most  act 
ive  in  the  persecution  of  those  who  were  supposed  to  be  under  its  in 
fluence  (see  Lecky,  vol.  i.,  p.  28-34),  and  yet  the  Church,  while  it  has 
changed  its  belief  wholly  on  that  subject,  has  not  changed  its  faith  in 
the  belief  of  the  miracles  of  the  Bible,  and  it  is  certain  that  infidelity 
Avould  make  no  impression  on  the  Church  by  arguing  from  the  one  to 
the  other. 

The  reasons  of  this  are  now  plain.  The  sphere  of  witchcraft,  nec 
romancy,  sorcery,  and  divination,  and  the  sphere  of  miracles,  is  wide 
ly  different.  All,  indeed,  pertain  to  the  supernatural,  but  they  do  not 
so  pertain  to  it  that  the  one  affects  the  other.  The  one — witchcraft, 
necromancy,  divination,  sorcery — is  an  alliance  with  inferior  spirits ; 


APPENDIX.  431 

not  with  God.  It  is  for  purposes  of  mischief;  never  for  good.  The 
power  which  it  summons,  and  with  which  it  combines,  is  an  evil — a 
malignant  power.  The  facts  in  the  case  are  susceptible  of  explana 
tion  from  natural  causes.  The  effects  on  a  community  can  be  traced 
to  a  popular  illusion.  The  whole  operation — the  agents  employed,  the 
manner  in  which  they  are  supposed  to  effect  their  marvels,  and  the 
effects  themselves,  are  all  beneath  the  dignity  of  philosophy,  beneath 
religion,  beneath  God,  and  beneath  the  rules  of  sober  reasoning.  In 
reference  to  the  great  change  produced  in  the  Avorld  in  our  age  on  the 
subject  of  witchcraft,  there  is  undoubtedly  much  force  in  the  following 
remarks  of  Lecky,  and  those  remarks  may  furnish  one  cause  to  show 
why  faith  in  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  has  not  been  extensively  affect 
ed  by  this  change  of  belief.  He  says,  "  If  we  ask  Avhy  it  is  that  the 
world  has  rejected  what  was  once  so  universally  and  so  intensely  be 
lieved — why  a  narrative  of  an  old  Avoman  Avho  had  been  seen  riding  on 
a  broomstick,  or  who  was  proved  to  have  transformed  herself  into  a 
wolf,  and  to  have  devoured  the  flocks  of  her  neighbors,  is  deemed  so 
entirely  incredible,  most  persons  would  probably  be  unable  to  give  a 
very  definite  ansAver  to  the  question.  It  is  not  because  we  have  ex 
amined  the  evidence  and  found  it  insufficient,  for  the  disbelief  always 
precedes,  Avhen  it  does  not  prevent,  examination.  It  is  rather  because 
the  idea  of  absurdity  is  so  strongly  attached  to  such  narratives  that  it 
is  difficult  even  to  consider  them  with  graArity"  (vol.  i. ,  p.  34).  It  will 
instantly  occur  to  the  mind  that  no  such  process  of  thought  can  be  ap 
plied  to  the  healing  of  the  sick,  to  the  restoration  of  the  blind  to  sight, 
or  to  the  raising  of  the  dead. 

I  infer,  therefore,  that  the  process  of  thought  by  Avhich  the  Avorld 
has  been  delivered  from  faith  in  Avitchcraft,  necromancy,  sorcery,  and 
divination,  is  not  applicable  to  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  that  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  can  not  be  disposed  of  in  the  way 
in  Avhich  the  belief  in  Avitchcraft,  necromancy,  and  sorcery  has  been. 

(3.)  The  third  point  in  the  argument  relates  to  the  inquiry  Avhether 
the  miracles  of  the  Bible  can  be  disposed  of  in  the  manner  in  which 
the  miracles  alleged  to  have  been  wrought  in  the  early  Christian 
Church  after  the  time  of  the  apostles,  and  at  subsequent  periods,  can 
be.  This  inquiry  Avould  also  embrace  the  Roman  Catholic  miracles 
Avhich  are  claimed  to  be  Avrought  in  our  own  times  as  proofs  of  the  di- 
A-ine  origin  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith,  and  in  defense  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church. 

The  inquiry  is,  Avhether  what  Avould  be  a  proper  explanation  of  the 
one  Avould  also  apply  to  the  other ;  Avhether,  on  the  supposition  that 
these  claims  in  regard  to  the  miracles  of  the  Church  subsequent  to  the 
times  of  the  apostles  are  false,  the  same  process  of  reasoning  Avould 


432  APPENDIX. 

show  that  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  are  false  ?  In  other  words,  the  in 
quiry  is,  whether,  on  the  supposition  that  the  world  will  settle  down 
into  a  universal  skepticism  in  regard  to  the  miracles  alleged  to  have 
been  wrought  since  the  time  of  the  apostles,  and  especially  those 
claimed  to  have  been  wrought  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  as  it 
probably  will,  the  process  of  thought  by  which  that  conclusion  will  be 
reached  will  carry  with  it  necessarily  a  universal  skepticism  in  regard 
to  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  ?  It  is  clear  that  if  the  same  explanation 
can  be  given  to  the  one  as  to  the  other,  the  conclusion  will  be  inevita 
ble  that  they  are  equally  false ;  if  there  is  no  stronger  testimony  in  the 
one  case  than  in  the  other,  on  the  supposition  that  the  world  has  been 
under  a  delusion  in  reference  to  the  facts  alleged,  then  the  same  con 
clusion  in  regard  to  both  classes  of  miracles  is  inevitable.  It  is  a 
great  question,  therefore,  whether  the  present  tendency  of  the  world  to 
Rationalism,  as  affecting  this  point,  as  it  undoubtedly  exists  in  the  sci 
entific  world,  in  the  Protestant  churches,  and  even,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  the  Roman  Catholic  communion,  is  in  fact  a  tendency  toward  Ra 
tionalism  or  skepticism  on  the  whole  subject  of  miracles,  and  will  lead 
to  the  denial  of  miracles  altogether. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  advert  farther  to  the  great  change  which  has 
occurred  in  the  world  in  reference  to  the  miracles  which  were  alleged 
to  have  been  wrought  in  the  times  subsequent  to  the  apostles.  Up  to 
a  recent  period,  the  inquiry  in  ecclesiastical  history  has  been,  not 
whether  such  miraculous  powers  existed  in  the  Church,  but  at  what 
exact  point  that  power  ceased.  The  general  impression  among  Prot 
estants  has  been,  that  that  power  ceased  when  miracles  were  no  longer 
necessary  for  the  defense  and  the  diffusion  of  Christianity.  The  pre 
vailing  opinion  on  the  subject  has  been  undoubtedly  expressed  by  Arch 
bishop  Tillotson  :  "  That  on  the  first  planting  of  the  Christian  religion 
in  the  world,  God  was  pleased  to  accompany  it  with  a  miraculous  pow 
er  ;  but  after  it  was  planted  that  power  ceased,  and  God  left  it  to  be 
maintained  by  ordinary  ways."* 

It  would  not  conduce,  to  any  proper  view  of  the  point  before  us  to 
state  farther  the  changes  which  have  occurred  in  the  opinions  of  men 
on  the  subject ;  to  inquire  at  what  time  the  power  of  working  miracles 
in  the  Church,  if  it  ever  existed,  ceased ;  or  to  consider  the  question 
whether  such  miraculous  powers  existed  or  not.  The  sole  inquiry  is, 
whether  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  can  be  disposed  of  in  the  same  way 
as  the  alleged  miracles  in  the  Church  subsequent  to  the  time  of  the 
apostles  ;  whether  an  absolute  skepticism  in  regard  to  the  latter  of  ne 
cessity  involves  an  absolute  skepticism  in  regard  to  the  former ; 
whether  the  two  stand  or  fall  together  ? 

*  Sermons,  vol.  iii.,  p.  488,  ed.  1735. 


APPENDIX.  433 

On  this  inquiry  I  submit  the  following  remarks  : 

First.  If  miracles  were  actually  wrought  in  the  primitive  Church 
subsequent  to  the  time  of  the  apostles,  and  continue  to  be  wrought 
still  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  this  would  not  prove  that  the 
miracles  of  the  Bible  were  false.  That  one  thing  has  been  done  does 
not  prove  that  another  has  not  been.  Moreover,  in  such  a  case  and 
on  such  an  admission,  the  possibility  of  miracles  would  be  established, 
and  the  presumption,  therefore,  would  be  that  they  may  have  occurred 
as  recorded  in  the  Bible.  Indeed,  if  they  have  occurred  in  such  num 
bers  as  it  has  been  claimed  that  they  have  done  in  the  Church,  then, 
so  far  from  its  being  true,  as  Mr.  Hume  alleges,  that  "  a  uniform  ex 
perience  has  established  the  stability  of  the  laws  of  nature,"  the  very 
reverse  ^>f  this  has  been  established.  The  admission  of  the  fact  of 
such  miracles  would  destroy  the  whole  argument  of  Mr.  Hume. 

Second.  If  the  miracles  referred  to  were  not  wrought  in  the  primi 
tive  Church,  and  if  they  are  not  wrought  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  that  does  prove  that  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  are  false.  Ob 
viously  it  may  be  possible  to  account  for  the  prevalence  of  a  belief  in 
false  miracles,  and  for  well-executed  impostures  in  one  case,  by  ex 
planations  which  would  not  be  applicable  to  the  other.  Illusions  in 
one  instance  do  not  prove  that  illusions  extend  to  every  thing  ;  impos 
ture  in  one  case  does  not  prove  that  it  exists  in  all  cases ;  that  there 
are  deceivers  at  one  time  and  in  one  place  does  not  prove  that  they 
exist  at  all  times  and  in  all  places ;  the  fact  that  there  is  counterfeit 
coin  does  not  prove  that  there  is  no  genuine  coin ;  that  there  are  false 
religions  in  the  world  does  not  prove  that  there  is  no  religion  that  is 
genuine.  It  is  clear  that  the  pretended  miracles  in  the  primitive 
Church,  and  in  the  Roman  Catholic  communion,  should  be  examined 
on  their  own  merits,  and  be  embraced  or  rejected  as  the  evidence  in 
the  case  shall  demand.  If  there  is  reason  to  reject  them,  that  fact 
does  not  prove  that  there  may  not  be  reasons  why  the  account  of  other 
miracles  should  not  be  embraced  as  true.  No  amount  of  testimony 
in  regard  to  the  alleged  fact  that  the  dead  were  raised  subsequent  to 
the  time  of  the  apostles,  whether  for  or  against  such  claims,  could 
demonstrate  that  Lazarus  was  not  raised  from  the  dead ;  nor  should 
Rationalism  and  skepticism  make  a  hasty  stride  from  one  to  the 
other. 

Third.  It  is  possible  to  account  for  all  that  is  said  to  have  occurred 
in  the  primitive  Church  after  the  time  of  the  apostles,  and  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  without  supposing  that  there  were  real  mira 
cles  wrought.  It  might  be  that  tricks  and  jugglery  were  practiced ; 
it  might  be  that  there  was  collusion  and  concert  in  performing  the  al 
leged  miracle ;  it  might  be  that  the  witnesses  did  not  say  that  they  saw 

T 


434  APPENDIX. 

the  miracles,  but  that  they  were  reported  to  have  occurred ;  it  might 
be  that  no  record  was  made  at  the  time,  but  that  the  belief  grew  up  in 
a  subsequent  age ;  it  might  be  that  the  alleged  miracles  were  manifestly 
wrought  to  sustain  a  particular  form  of  religion,  or  a  party  in  the 
Church,  or  the  claims  of  a  priesthood  to  a  divine  appointment,  or  the 
truth  of  a  particular  doctrine,  or  to  honor  a  particular  saint ;  it  might 
be  that  there  were  rival  churches,  and  that  the  miracles  were  mani 
festly  wrought  to  sustain  the  one  against  the  other ;  it  might  be  that 
there  was  a  susceptibility  in  the  public  mind,  or  in  the  prevalent  be 
lief  of  the  age,  which  received  such  accounts  without  calling  them  in 
question ;  it  might  be  that  the  belief  in  the  miracles  was  on  the  same 
ground  as  the  belief  in  prevalent  superstitions — as  of  ghosts,  appari 
tions,  witchcraft,  table-turning^  and  spirit-rapping;  it  might.be  that 
the  alleged  witnesses  were  not  credible  witnesses,  and  that  they  were 
never  subjected  to  any  test  or  trial  which  would  show  that  they  were 
sincere  witnesses  for  truth,  and  were  not  impostors.  Without  affirm 
ing  now  that  these  things  were  so,  it  is  affirmed  that  it  is  conceivable 
that  they  might  be  so ;  and  the  world  is  undoubtedly  coming  to  that 
belief  in  regard  to  all  the  pretended  miracles  in  the  Eoman  Catholic 
Church  ;  all  the  marvels  of  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  to  no  small  part,  at 
least,  of  the  alleged  miracles  of  the  primitive  Church  after  the  time  of 
the  apostles. 

Fourth.  The  philosophical  mode  of  accounting  for  the  alleged  mira 
cles  of  the  primitive  Church  after  the  time  of  the  apostles  will  not  ex 
plain  the  facts  in  regard  to  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament.  This 
remark,  for  the  purpose  of  the  argument,  and  without  in  any  way 
affecting  injuriously  the  general  conclusion,  may  be  confined  to  the 
alleged  miracles  in  the  period  immediately  succeeding  the  apostles — 
for  it  is  there  that  the  strength  of  the  argument  must  lie.  If  those 
miracles  are  disposed  of  there  can  be  no  difficulty  in  regard  to  those 
that  follow. 

The  following  facts,  then,  have  been  established  so  as  to  admit  of 
little  or  no  doubt  in  regard  to  those  miracles : 

(a)  That  the  "apostolic  fathers" — as  they  are  commonly  called — 
those  who  lived  in  the  time  of  the  apostles,  and  who  had,  some  of 
them  at  least,  conversed  with  the  apostles,  advance  no  claim  to  any 
such  miraculous  powers,  and  make  no  affirmation  that  such  miracles, 
were  wrought  by  any  in  their  own  age  who  were  not  apostles.  Those 
"fathers"  embrace  Barnabas,  Clement,  Ignatius,  Polycarp,  and  Her- 
mas,  some  of  whom  survived  for  half  a  century  after  the  death  of  the 
last  of  the  apostles.*  "  Here,  then,"  says  Middleton  (p.  9),  "we  have 

*  For  the  proof  of  what  is  affirmed  here  and  in  the  remainder  of  this  argu 
ment  about  the  alleged  miracles  in  the  Church,  I  refer  to  the  work  of  Middle- 


APPENDIX.  435 

an  interval  of  about  half  a  century,  the  earliest  and  purest  of  all  Chris 
tian  antiquity  after  the  days  of  the  apostles,  in  which  we  find  not  the 
least  reference  to  any  standing  power  of  working  miracles,  as  existed 
openly  in  the  Church,  for  the  conviction  of  unbelievers ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  the  strongest  reason  to  presume  that  the  extraordinary  gifts 
of  the  apostolic  age  were  by  this  time  actually  withdrawn." 

(6)  It  is  also  true  that  none  of  the  early  "  fathers"  of  the  Church, 
succeeding  this  time,  who  declare  that  the  power  of  working  miracles 
existed  in  the  Church,  "have  any  where  affirmed  that  either  they 
themselves,  or  the  apostolic  fathers  before  them,  were  endowed  with 
any  power  of  working  miracles"  (Middleton,  p.  21).  They  affirm,  in 
deed,  that  "such  powers  were  actually  subsisting  in  their  days,  and 
were  openly  exerted  in  the  Church ;  that  they  had  often  seen  the 
wonderful  effects  of  them ;  and  that  every  body  else  might  see  the 
same,  whenever  they  pleased,"  but  they  do  not  affirm  that  they  had  the 
power,  or  that  they  had  seen  the  miracles,  nor  do  they  specify  the 
names,  the  dates,  or  the  persons  by  whom,  or  on  whom,  the  miracles 
were  performed.  Origen,  speaking  of  the  *  miracle  of  casting  out 
devils,  says  that  "it  was  performed  by  laymen."  Mr.  Whiston  re 
marks  on  this  subject  that  "this  gift  was  wholly  appropriated  by  the 
Savior  to  the  meaner  sorts  of  Christians,  with  an  exclusion  even  of  the 
clergy,  so  that  after  the  days  of  the  apostles  none  of  the  sacred  order 
ever  pretended  to  it."* 

Something,  perhaps,  may  be  learned  respecting  the  character  of 
those  who  pretended  to  work  miracles  from  the  uniform  statements  of 
the  enemies  of  Christianity.  It  is  certain  that  they  were  always  re 
garded  as  pretenders  and  impostors,  and  were  always  charged  with  the 
practice  of  fraud.  Thus  Lucian  says  that  "whenever  any  crafty 
juggler,  expert  in  his  trade,  and  who  knew  how  to  make  a  right  use 
of  things,  went  over  to  the  Christians,  he  was  sure  to  grow  rich  imme 
diately  by  making  a  prey  of  their  simplicity."!  In  like  manner  Celsus 
represents  all  the  Christian  wonder-workers  as  mere  vagabonds  and 
common  cheats,  "  who  rambled  about  to  play  tricks  at  fairs  and  mark 
ets  ;  not  in  the  circles  of  the  wiser  and  better  sort,  for  among  such 
they  never  ventured  to  appear,  but  wherever  they  observed  a  set  of 
raw  young  fellows,  slaves,  or  fools,  there  they  took  care  to  intrude 
themselves  and  to  display  their  arts."!  Cascilius  calls  them  "  a  lurk 
ing  nation ;  shunning  the  light ;  mute  in  public ;  prating  in  corners.  "§ 

In  view  of  all  the  statements  among  the  ancients  respecting  those 

ton :  A  Free  Inquiry  into  the  Miraculous  Powers  which  are  supposed  to  have 
subsisted  in  the  Christian  Church  from  the  Earliest  Ages,  by  Conyers  Middle- 
ton,  D.D.,  ed.  London,  1749.  *  Account  of  the  Demoniacs,  p.  62. 

t  De  Mort.  Pereg.,  t.  ii.,  p.  5C8.  J  Orig.  Con.  Cels.,  1.  6,  p.  284. 

§  Minuc.  Fel.,  p.  7.    Middleton,  p.  22,  23. 


436  APPENDIX. 

who  were  supposed  to  work  miracles,  Middleton  makes  the  following 
remarks  :  "The  celebrated  gifts  of  those  ages  were  generally  engrossed 
and  exercised  by  private  Christians,  who  used  to  travel  about  from  city 
to  city  to  assist  the  ordinary  pastors  of  the  Church  and  preachers  of 
the  Gospel  in  the  conversion  of  the  pagans,  by  the  extraordinary  gifts 
with  which  they  were  supposed  to  be  endowed  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 
and  the  miraculous  works  which  they  pretended  to  perform"  (p.  24). 

In  accordance  with  this  view,  it  is  stated  that  the  pretended  power 
of  working  miracles  was  committed,  not  to  those  who  were  intrusted 
with  the  government  of  the  Church — not  to  bishops,  martyrs,  and  the 
chief  defenders  of  the  Christian  cause,  but  to  boys ;  to  women ;  to 
private  and  obscure  laymen  ;  to  even  those  of  abandoned  moral  char 
acter  : 

Nwi  8e  Kal  dt'  avaftwi/  evepjeiv  6  Qeos  eiwOe. 

Chrysostom,  t.  iii.,  p.  66. 

Ut  intelligamus,  qusedam  miracula  etiam  sceleratores  homines  facere,  qua- 
lia  sancti  facere  non  possunt.  Angus.  Oper.,  t.  i.,  p.  71. 

(c)  The  character  of  many  of  the  Christian  fathers  for  credulity 
and  for  the  want  of  veracity  is  such  as  to  render  their  testimony  on 
this  point  of  great  doubt  and  of  little  value.  They  undoubtedly 
adopted  the  principle  that  the  Christian  religion  was  true ;  that  it  was 
indispensable  for  the  salvation  of  men ;  and  that  all  means  were  to  be 
employed  to  propagate  it,  to  convince  men  of  its  truth,  and  to  induce 
them  to  turn  from  idolatry  to  the  service  of  the  true  God.  If  the  re 
sult  was  reached,  that  result  was,  in  their  apprehension,  of  much  more 
importance  than  the  means  of  reaching  it.  In  accordance  with  this, 
it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  false  histories  were  early  forged ;  false  and 
weak  interpretations  were  given  to  the  Scriptures  ;  false  narratives  of 
events  were  given  to  the  world — until  the  world  became  full  of  the 
legends  of  the  saints  and  martyrs.  If  it  be  true  that,  as  historians  of 
ordinary  facts  and  ordinary  events,  they  report  such  facts  accurately, 
it  is  also  true  that  there  were  numberless  narratives  in  those  eai'ly 
ages  which  were  based  wholly  on  fiction,  and  true  also  that  these  were 
employed  in  the  propagation  of  religion.  Middleton  (p.  36-71)  has 
placed  these  facts  beyond  question,  and  these  facts  would  go  far  to  ex 
plain  the  accounts  of  the  early  miracles  in  the  Christian  Church. 

(rf)  It  is  a  very  material  fact  in  regard  to  these  pretended  miracles, 
alike  in  the  early  Christian  Church,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  the 
modern  Roman  Catholic  Church,  that  the  testimony  is  not  usually 
given  by  contemporaries,  or  those  who  lived  at  the  time — so  far  as 
names  and  dates  are  concerned,  but  by  writers  of  a  later  age.  This  is 
true  alike  of  the  pretended  miracles  of  the  early  Christian  Church,  of 
the  miracles  of  the  heathen  as  referred  to  by  the  enemies  of  Christian- 


APPENDIX.  437 

ity,  of  most  of  the  miracles  attributed  to  the  sacred  relics  of  the  saints, 
and  of  most  of  the  miracles  of  the  "  saints"  who  have  heen  "  canon 
ized"  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  Thus  miracles  are  attributed 
to  Pythagoras,  not  by  his  contemporaries,  but  by  Porphyry  and  lam- 
blichus,  who  wrote  his  life  three  hundred  years  after  his  death ;  the 
prodigies  in  the  History  of  Rome  are  recorded,  not  by  persons  who 
lived  at  the  time,  but  by  Livy,  who  lived  many  centuries  afterward ; 
the  miracles  ascribed  to  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  of  which  so  much  has 
been  made  by  the  enemies  of  Christianity,  were  not  recorded  by  any 
one  living  at  the  time,  but  the  belief  in  them  rests  solely  on  the  single 
assertion  of  his  biographer,  Philostratus,  who  lived  a  hundred  years 
after  the  death  of  Apollonius  ;  the  accounts  of  the  miracles  of  Greg 
ory,  bishop  of  Neocassarea,  called  Thaumaturgus  from  the  number  and 
character  of  the  miracles  which  he  wrought,  is  found  only  in  the  writ 
ings  of  Gregory  of  Nyssen,  who  lived  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  after 
him ;  and  a  great  part  of  the  legendary  miracles  of  the  Popish 
"saints"  depend  for  their  credibility  on  the  certificates  presented  at 
their  "  canonization,"  a  ceremony  which  seldom  takes  place  till  a  cen 
tury  after  their  deaths. 

A  single  case  will  illustrate  this  point,  and  show  its  real  force  in  the 
argument.  It  is  that  of  Ignatius  Loyola,  the  founder  of  the  order  of 
the  Jesuits.  His  life,  written  by  a  companion  of  his,  was  published 
about  fifteen  years  after  his  death.  In  that  life,  the  author,  so  far 
from  ascribing  any  miracles  to  Ignatius,  carefully  states  the  reasons 
why  he  was  not  invested  with  any  such  power.  That  life  was  repub- 
lished  fifteen  years  afterward,  with  the  addition  of  many  circumstan 
ces,  which  were  the  fruit,  the  author  says,  of  farther  inquiry  and  of 
diligent  examination,  but  still  with  a  total  silence  about  miracles. 
When  Ignatius  had  been  dead  nearly  sixty  years,  the  Jesuits,  conceiv 
ing  a  wish  to  have  the  founder  of  their  order  placed  in  the  Roman  cal 
endar,  began,  for  the  first  time,  to  attribute  to  him  the  power  of  work 
ing  miracles,  and  specified  a  large  number  which  could  not  then  be 
distinctly  disproved,  and  which  there  was,  in  those  who  governed  the 
Church,  a  strong  disposition  to  admit  on  the  slenderest  proofs.* 

It  is  clear  that  these  circumstances  constitute  a  broad  line  of  dis 
tinction  between  these  alleged  miracles  and  the  miracles  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  that,  so  far  as  these  cases  go,  the  explanation  of  the 
one  would  in  no  manner  constitute  an  explanation  of  the  other. 

(e)  It  is  material,  also,  to  remark,  that  a  large  part  of  the  miracles 
alleged  to  have  been  wrought  in  the  early  Church,  and  nearly  all  of 
those  wrought  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  were  wrought,  not  by 

*  The  authority  for  these  statements  is  Paley— Evidences  of  Christianity, 
Works,  ed.  1824,  vol.  i.,  p.  182, 183. 


438  APPENDIX. 

the  persons  themselves  while  living,  but  by  their  relics,  and  many  of 
them  hundreds  of  years  after  the  death  of  the  "  saints"  themselves. 
The  Ecclesiastical  History  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of  the  Romish 
Church  is  full  of  such  wonders,  and  our  own  age  has  been  edified 
with  the  accounts  of  numberless  such  miracles  as  were  wrought  by  the 
"  Holy  Coat"  at  Treves.  Even  Augustine,  the  ablest  and  most  clear 
headed  of  the  fathers,  and  a  man  of  undoubted  piety,  solemnly  asserts 
that  in  his  own  diocese  at  Hippo,  in  the  space  of  two  years,  no  less 
than  seventy  miracles  had  been  wrought  by  the  body  of  St.  Stephen, 
and  that  in  the  neighboring  province  of  Calama,  where  the  relic  had 
previously  been,  the  number  was  incomparably  greater.  He  gives  a 
catalogue  of  what  he  deems  undoubted  miracles,  which  he  says  he  had 
selected  from  a  multitude  so  great  that  volumes  would  be  required  to 
relate  them  all.  In  that  catalogue  we  find  no  less  than  five  cases  of 
restoration  of  life  to  the  dead  (De  Civit.  Dei,  lib.  xxii.,  c.  8).  In  his 
Confessions  (b.  ix.,viii.,  16)  he  relates  the  case  of  miracles  wrought  by 
the  dead  bodies  of  Gervasius  and  Protasius,  which  were  discovered  by 
Ambrose  of  Milan,  and  which  were  removed  to  the  Ambrosian  Basilica, 
particularly  the  restoring  of  sight  to  a  blind  man  who  was  allowed  to 
touch  the  bier  with  a  handkerchief.  Of  this  miracle,  and  of  numerous 
others  of  a  similar  kind,  he  says,  "  Of  which  so  great  glory  of  the  mar 
tyrs  I  also  was  a  witness.  I  was  there — was  at  Milan ;  I  knew  the 
miracles  wrought,  God  bearing  witness  to  '  the  precious  death  of  his 
saints,' so  that  through  those  miracles  that  'death  was  precious'  now 
not '  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord'  only,  but  in  the  sight  of  men"  (De  Civit. 
Dei,  lib.  xxii.,  c.  8,  32).  It  is  clear  that  whatever  explanation  is  given 
of  these  miracles,  the  explanation  would  not  be  applicable  to  the  mira 
cles  of  the  New  Testament. 

(/')  It  is  farther  to  be  remarked  that  the  testimony  on  these  sub 
jects  among  the  fathers,  and  in  subsequent  times,  involved  no  sacri 
fices  ;  led  to  no  persecutions  ;  was  not  attended  with  the  loss  of  place 
or  property,  or  with  peril  of  life.  All  that  is  required  in  such  cases  is 
what  Dr.  Paley  calls  "an  otiose  assent."  They  are  employed  for  the 
maintenance  of  doctrines  already  embraced ;  or  in  defense  of  a  priest 
hood  already  established ;  or  for  the  credit  of  an  "  order"  of  religion 
ists,  like  the  Jesuits ;  or  in  honor  of  a  particular  monastery ;  or  to 
commemorate  some  particular  virtues  of  a  saint,  or  to  attract  men  to 
his  shrine.  Such  things  require  no  sacrifices.  They  demand  no 
abandonment  of  country,  of  friends,  or  of  home.  They  lead  to  no 
perils  by  sea  or  land.  They  involve  no  dangers  of  persecution.  They 
are  not  believed  and  defended  with  the  apprehension  of  fearful  tor 
tures  ;  of  being  thrown  to  wild  beasts  ;  of  being  scourged  or  stoned ; 
of  being  burned  at  the  stake,  or  put  to  death  on  a  cross.  They  belong 


APPENDIX.  439 

to  the  same  class  of  man-els,  in  this  respect,  as  the  belief  in  appari 
tions,  ghosts,  table-turning,  spirit-rapping.  Whether  men  would  suffer 
persecution  on  their  account  might  be  a  fair  question ;  it  is  certain 
that  they  do  not. 

But  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  advert  to  the  fact  that  all  this  is  differ 
ent  from  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament,  and  the  treatment  of  the 
apostles  consequent  on  their  faith  in  those  miracles.  Those  miracles, 
if  real,  decided  the  most  important  questions  conceivable  in  regard  to 
the  destiny  of  mankind.  The  belief  in  them  led  to  an  entire  change 
in  the  religion  of  the  world.  They  were  not  wrought  to  establish  any 
existing  system  of  religion,  but  they  led  to  the  overthrow  of  all  the  sys 
tems  of  religion  that  did  exist,  in  all  lands,  involving  all  that  there  was 
of  property,  and  position,  and  influence,  and  traditionary  sacredness  in 
those  religions ;  all  that  there  was  that  was  mighty,  and  sacred,  and 
venerable  in  a  priesthood ;  and  all  that  was  held  sacred  in  the  laAvs. 
The  belief  in  those  miracles  involved  the  necessity  of  parting  with 
friends ;  of  encountering  the  perils  of  land  and  ocean ;  of  meeting  with 
opposition,  contempt,  persecution,  and  death  in  its  most  terrific  forms  ; 
of  bidding  adieu  to  all  that  was  attractive  in  this  life,  and  of  enduring 
all  that  could  be  made  fearful  to  human  nature  while  living,  and  all  in 
death  that  could  be  made  terrible. 

I  infer,  therefore,  that  the  explanation  which  must  be  given  of  the 
miracles  of  the  early  Church  after  the  time  of  the  apostles,  of  the 
miracles  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  of  the  miracles  of  the  Eoman  Catho 
lic  Church,  is  not  a  philosophical  explanation  of  the  miracles  of  the 
Bible. 

(4.)  The  fourth  point  in  the  argument  relates  to  the  inquiry  whether 
the  miracles  of  the  Bible  can  be  disposed  of  in  the  same  way  as  the 
miracles  alleged  to  have  been  wrought  among  the  heathen ;  or,  more 
generally,  the  miracles  which  are  referred  to  by  those  who  reject  the 
claims  of  the  Bible.  These  may,  of  course,  embrace  a  part  of  those 
which  have  already  been  referred  to,  but  they  may  properly,  so  far  as 
they  are  appealed  to  by  the  rejectors  of  the  Bible,  be  again  noticed 
with  reference  to  their  direct  bearing  on  the  argument. 

It  would  have  been  wiser  undoubtedly  for  the  rejectors  of  the  mira 
cles  of  the  Bible  to  base  the  argument  for  their  rejection  on  general 
principles  and  on  abstract  reasoning,  and  not  to  peril  their  argument 
by  bringing  other  miracles  into  comparison  with  those  of  the  Bible. 
Mr.  Hume's  celebrated  Essay  on  Miracles  would  have  been  stronger 
by  far  if  he  had  omitted  all  reference  to  other  miracles  in  comparison 
with  those  in  the  Bible.  It  is,  therefore,  an  advantage  in  the  argu 
ment  for  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  that  an  attempt  has  been  made  to 
bring  others  into  comparison  with  them.  If,  now,  an  explanation  can 


440  APPENDIX. 

be  given  of  those  alleged  miracles  which  can  not  be  applied  to  those  in 
the  Bible,  or  which  will  not  satisfactorily  account  for  them,  the  argu 
ment  for  the  reality  of  those  miracles  will  remain  in  all  its  proper 
force. 

In  such  an  argument  on  the  part  of  those  who  reject  the  miracles  of 
the  Bible,  they  who  make  the  appeal  have,  as  Dr.  Paley  has  remarked, 
an  undoubted  right  to  select  their  own  examples.  We  may  presume 
that  they  would  select  the  strongest  instances  which  the  world  has 
furnished  to  bring  into  comparison  with  the  miracles  of  the  Bible,  and 
all  the  proprieties  of  the  case  will  be  complied  with  if,  in  the  argu 
ment,  the  attention  is  confined  to  those  examples  to  Avhich  they  have 
referred.  The  friends  of  religion  can  not  be  supposed  to  be  bound  to 
furnish,  if  they  could,  stronger  instances  than  those  which  have  been 
actually  selected. 

In  particular,  it  may  be  presumed  that  Mr.  Hume  would  select  those 
which,  for  his  purpose,  could  be  best  brought  into  comparison  with  the 
Scripture  miracles.  Of  the  rejectors  of  revelation,  few,  if  any,  have 
been  more  acute  and  learned  than  he ;  none  probably  have  had  a  larger 
acquaintance  with  history,  or  could  make  a  better  selection  of  the  mi 
raculous  events  on  which  the  argument  might  be  made  to  rest. 

From  the  wide  range  of  pretended  miracles  in  the  world ;  from  the 
almost  innumerable  cases  of  such  pretensions  ;  from  those  marvels 
Avhich  have  been  regarded  as  miracles  in  the  heathen  world,  in  the 
early  Christian  Church  after  the  time  of  the  apostles,  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  more  modern  times,  he 
has  selected  three  on  which  he  seems  willing  that  the  argument  shall 
rest.  They  are  the  following  : 

I.  The  cure  of  a  blind  and  a  lame  man  of  Alexandria,  by  the  Em 
peror  Vespasian,  as  related  by  Tacitus ; 

II.  The  restoration  of  the  limb  of  an  attendant  in  a  Spanish  church, 
as  told  by  Cardinal  de  Retz  ;  and, 

III.  The  cures  said  to  have  been  performed  at  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe 
Paris  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century. 

The  circumstances  in  these  cases,  and  the  argument,  can  be  best 
expressed  in  his  own  words  :  "  One  of  the  best  attested  miracles  in  all 
profane  history  is  that  which  Tacitus  reports  of  Vespasian,  who  cured 
a  blind  man  in  Alexandria  by  means  of  his  spittle,  and  a  lame  man  by 
the  mere  touch  of  his  foot ;  in  obedience  to  a  vision  of  the  god  Sera  pis, 
who  had  enjoined  them  to  have  recourse  to  the  emperor  for  these  mi 
raculous  cures.  The  story  may  be  seen  in  that  fine  historian,  where 
every  circumstance  seems  to  add  weight  to  the  testimony,  and  might 
be  displayed  at  large  with  all  the  force  of  argument  and  eloquence,  if 
any  one  were  now  concerned  to  enforce  the  evidence  of  that  exploded 


APPENDIX.  441 

and  idolatrous  superstition.  The  gravity,  solidity,  age,  and  probity  of 
so  great  an  emperor,  who,  through  the  whole  course  of  his  life,  con 
versed  in  a  familiar  manner  with  his  friends  and  courtiers,  and  never 
affected  those  extraordinary  airs  of  divinity  assumed  by  Alexander 
and  Demetrius  ;  the  historian  a  contemporary  writer,  noted  for  can 
dor  and  veracity,  and,  withal,  the  greatest  and  most  penetrating  gen 
ius,  perhaps,  of  all  antiquity,  and  so  free  from  any  tendency  to  cre 
dulity  that  he  even  lies  under  the  contrary  imputation  of  atheism  and 
profaneness  ;  the  persons  from  whose  authority  he  related  the  miracle, 
of  established  character  for  judgment  and  veracity,  as  we  may  well 
presume  —  eye-witnesses  of  the  fact,  and  confirming  their  testimony 
after  the  Flavian  family  was  despoiled  of  the  empire,  and  could  no 
longer  give  any  reward  as  the  price  of  a  lie — utrumque,  qui  interfuere, 
nunc  quoque  memorant,  postquam  nullum  mendacio  pretium  —  to 
Avhich  if  we  add  the  public  nature  of  the  facts  as  related,  it  will  appear 
that  no  evidence  can  well  be  supposed  stronger  for  so  gross  and  so 
palpable  a  falsehood. 

"There  is  also  a  memorable  story  related  by  Cardinal  de  Retz 
which  may  well  deserve  our  consideration.  "When  that  intriguing 
politician  fled  into  Spain  to  avoid  the  persecution  of  his  enemies,  he 
passed  through  Saragossa,  the  capital  of  Aragon,  where  he  was  shown 
in  the  cathedral  a  man  who  had  served  seven  years  as  a  door-keeper, 
and  was  well  known  to  every  body  in  town  that  had  ever  paid  his  de 
votions  at  that  Church.  He  had  been  seen  for  so  long  a  time  want 
ing  a  leg,  but  recovered  that  limb  by  the  rubbing  of  holy  oil  upon  the 
stump ;  and  the  cardinal  assures  us  that  he  saw  him  with  two  legs. 
This  miracle  was  vouched  by  all  the  canons  of  the  Church ;  and  the 
whole  company  in  town  were  appealed  to  for  a  confirmation  of  the 
fact,  whom  the  cardinal  found,  by  their  zealous  devotion,  to  be  thor 
ough  believers  of  the  miracle.  Here  the  relater  was  also  contemporary 
to  the  supposed  prodigy,  of  an  incredulous  and  libertine  character,  as 
well  as  of  great  genius ;  the  miracle  of  so  singular  a  nature  as  could 
scarcely  admit  of  a  counterfeit,  and  the  witnesses  very  numerous,  and 
all  of  them  in  a  manner  spectators  of  the  fact,  to  which  they  gave  their 
testimony.  And  Avhat  adds  mightily  to  the  force  of  the  evidence,  and 
may  double  our  surprise  on  this  occasion,  is  that  the  cardinal  himself, 
who  relates  the  story,  seems  not  to  give  any  credit  to  it,  and  conse 
quently  can  not  be  suspected  of  any  concurrence  in  the  holy  fraud. 
He  considered  justly  that  it  was  not  requisite,  in  order  to  reject  a  fact 
of  this  nature,  to  be  able  accurately  to  disprove  the  testimony  and  to 
trace  its  falsehood  through  all  the  circumstances  of  knavery  and  cre 
dulity  which  produced  it.  He  knew  that,  as  this  was  commonly  alto 
gether  impossible  at  any  small  distance  of  time  and  place,  so  was  it 

T2 


442  APPENDIX. 

extremely  difficult,  even  where  one  was  immediately  present,  by  reason 
of  the  bigotry,  ignorance,  cunning,  and  roguery  of  a  great  part  of  man 
kind.  He  therefore  concluded,  like  a  just  reasoner,  that  such  an  evi 
dence  carried  falsehood  upon  the  very  face  of  it,  and  that  a  miracle 
supported  by  any  human  testimony  was  more  properly  a  subject  of 
derision  than  of  argument. 

"  There  surely  was  never  a  greater  number  of  miracles  ascribed  to 
one  person  than  those  which  were  lately  said  to  have  been  wrought 
in  France  upon  the  tomb  of  Abbe  Paris,  the  famous  Jansenist,  with 
whose  sanctity  the  people  were  so  long  deluded.  The  curing  of  the 
sick,  giving  hearing  to  the  deaf,  and  sight  to  the  blind,  were  every 
where  talked  of  as  usual  effects  of  that  holy  sepulchre.  But,  what  is 
more  extraordinary,  many  of  the  miracles  were  immediately  proved 
upon  the  spot,  before  judges  of  unquestioned  integrity,  attested  by  wit 
nesses  of  credit  and  distinction,  in  a  learned  age,  and  on  the  most  em 
inent  theatre  that  is  now  in  the  world.  Nor  is  this  all ;  a  relation  of 
them  was  published  and  dispersed  every  where ;  nor  were  the  Jesuits, 
though  a  learned  body,  supported  by  the  civil  magistrate,  and  determ 
ined  enemies  to  those  opinions  in  whose  favor  the  miracles  were  said 
to  have  been  wrought,  ever  able  distinctly  to  refute  or  detect  them. 
Where  shall  we  find  such  a  number  of  circumstances  agreeing  to  the 
corroboration  of  one  fact  ?  And  what  have  we  to  oppose  to  such  a 
cloud  of  witnesses  but  the  absolute  impossibility  or  miraculous  nature 
of  the  events  which  they  relate  ?  And  this  surely,  in  the  eyes  of  all 
reasonable  people,  will  alone  be  regarded  as  a  sufficient  refutation."* 

Of  the  first  of  these  alleged  miracles,  the  account  by  Tacitus  is  as 
follows : 

"  One  of  the  common  people  of  Alexandria,  known  to  be  diseased  in 
his  eyes,  by  the  admonition  of  the  god  Serapis,  whom  that  superstitious 
nation  worship  above  all  other  gods,  prostrated  himself  before  the  em 
peror,  earnestly  imploring  from  him  a  remedy  for  his  blindness,  and 
entreating  that  he  would  deign  to  anoint  with  his  spittle  his  cheeks 
and  the  balls  of  his  eyes.  Another,  diseased  in  his  hand,  requested,  by 
the  admonition  of  the  same  god,  that  he  might  be  touched  by  the  foot 
of  the  emperor.  Vespasian  at  first  derided  and  despised  their  appli 
cation  ;  afterward,  when  they  continued  to  urge  their  petitions,  he 
sometimes  appeared  to  dread  the  imputation  of  vanity ;  at  other  times, 
by  the  earnest  supplication  of  the  patients,  and  the  persuasion  of  his 
flatterers,  to  be  induced  to  hope  for  success.  At  length  he  command 
ed  an  inquiry  to  be  made  by  the  physicians  whether  such  a  blindness 
and  debility  were  vincible  by  human  aid.  The  report  of  the  physi 
cians  contained  various  points ;  that  in  the  one  the  power  of  vision  was 
*  Essays,  vol.  ii.,  p.  115-118. 


APPENDIX.  443 

not  destroyed,  but  would  return  if  the  obstacles  were  removed ;  that 
in  the  other,  the  diseased  joints  might  be  restored  if  a  healing  power 
were  applied ;  that  it  was,  perhaps,  agreeable  to  the  gods  to  do  this ; 
that  the  emperor  was  elected  by  divine  assistance ;  lastly,  that  the 
credit  of  the  success  would  be  the  emperor's,  the  ridicule  of  the  disap 
pointment  would  fall  upon  the  patients.  Vespasian,  believing  that 
every  thing  was  in  the  power  of  his  fortune,  and  that  nothing  was  any 
longer  incredible,  while  the  multitude  which  stood  by  eagerly  expect 
ed  the  event,  with  a  countenance  expressive  of  joy,  executed  what  he 
was  desired  to  do.  Immediately  the  hand  was  restored  to  its  use,  and 
light  returned  to  the  blind  man.  They  who  were  present  relate  both 
these  cures,  even  at  this  time,  when  there  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by 
lying."* 

What,  now,  is  the  real  force  of  the  argument  from  this  alleged  mira 
cle  ?  What  were  the  facts  in  the  case  ?  Was  it  believed  by  Mr.  Hume  ? 
Can  it  properly  be  brought  into  comparison  with  the  miracles  of  the 
New  Testament  ? 

It  is  plain  that  if  the  miracles  in  the  case  of  Vespasian  were  actually 
wrought,  this  would  not  prove  that  the  Savior  did  not  restore  Barti- 
meus  to  sight,  or  heal  the  impotent  man  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda. 
There  would  be  no  incompatibility  between  the  miracles,  for  there  is 
no  necessary  conflict.  Suppose  that  in  one  case  a  miracle  was  wrought 
as  a  work  of  benevolence,  and  in  another  for  the  establishment  of  the 
truth  of  a  divine  mission,  there  evidently  would  be  no  such  conflict  be 
tween  the  two  as  to  prove  that  either  was  false. 

In  reference  to  these  alleged  miracles  of  Vespasian,  it  is  to  be  re 
marked  (a)  that  the  account  by  Tacitus  was  given  twenty-seven  years 
after  they  were  said  to  have  occurred ;  (6)  that  he  recorded  in  Rome 
what  was  said  to  have  occurred  in  Alexandria ;  (c)  that  he  did  not 
profess  to  have  seen  the  miracles  himself,  but  wrote  from  report ;  (c?) 
that  he  manifestly  did  not  believe  in  the  reality  of  the  miracles ;  (e) 
that  the  whole  affair  is  liable  to  a  strong  suspicion  that  it  was  the 
work  of  illusion  and  deception.  In  other  words,  all  that  there  was  in 
the  case  can  be  explained  on  the  supposition  that  there  was  collusion 
between  the  patients,  the  physician,  and  the  emperor.  This  explana 
tion  is  admissible  for  these  reasons  :  (1.)  It  was  not  uncommon,  then, 
to  believe  that  such  miracles  could  be  wrought,  just  as  in  later  times 
in  England  it  was  believed  that  scrofula,  or  the  "  king's  evil,"  could  be 
cured  by  the  touch  of  the  king.t  (2.)  It  would  be  for  the  interest  and 

*  Tacit.,  Hist.,  lib.  iv. 

t  Charles  the  Second,  in  the  course  of  his  reign,  u  touched"  near  a  hundred 
thousand  persons.  In  1682  he  performed  the  rite  eight  thousand  five  hundred 
times.  James  the  Second,  in  one  of  his  progresses,  touched  eight  persons  in 


444  APPENDIX. 

credit  of  the  emperor  that  such  a  belief  should  be  entertained  in  regard 
to  him.  (3.)  The  miracles  were  achieved  in  the  midst  of  the  emper 
or's  flatterers  and  followers  ;  in  a  city  and  among  a  people  devoted  to 
his  interest,  and  to  the  worship  of  the  god  Serapis ;  and  where  it  would 
have  been  treason  and  blasphemy  to  have  contradicted  the  fame  of  the 
cure,  or  to  have  questioned  it.  (4.)  It  is  to  be  observed,  also,  that  the 
report  of  the  physicians  is  just  such  a  report  as  would  be  made  in  a 
case  in  which  no  external  marks  of  the  disease  existed,  and  which, 
consequently,  was  capable  of  being  easily  counterfeited,  to  wit,  that  in 
the  one  case  the  organs  of  vision  were  not  destroyed,  and  that  the 
weakness  of  the  second  was  in  the  joints.  (5.)  There  is  little  force  in 
the  remark  of  Tacitus  that  they  who  were  present  continued  even  then 
to  "relate  both  these  cures,  when  there  was  nothing  to  be  gained  by 
lying."  The  particular  point  of  importance  is  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
witnesses,  and  the  circumstances  at  the  time,  and  not  whether  the 
story  would  be  likely  to  be  repeated.  It  is  also  of  importance  to  re 
mark,  that  if  there  was  nothing  "  to  be  gained  by  lying,"  it  is  a  ques 
tion  of  much  more  moment  whether  there  was  any  thing  to  be  lost,  or 
any  thing  to  be  suffered  by  continuing  to  repeat  the  story.  Would  the 
witnesses  have  done  it  if  it  would  have  involved  them  in  trouble  and 
losses  ;  if  it  had  subjected  them  to  persecution  ;  if  it  had  exposed  them 
to  death  in  most  horrid  forms?  (6.)  To  make  this  case  parallel, 
therefore,  with  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament,  all,  or  nearly  all 
of  these  circumstances  must  be  reversed.  If  these  marvelous  cures 
had  been  performed  in  the  presence  of  cavilers  and  enemies  ;  if  those 
who  were  present  were  incredulous,  and  had  no  previous  disposition  to 
believe  such  a  fact ;  if  every  circumstance  was  watched  with  a  jealous 
eye ;  if  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by  it  at  the  time  or  afterward ;  if  the 
case  was  removed  as  far  as  possible  from  all  appearance  or  possibility 
pf  collusion ;  if  they  who  professed  to  be  witnesses  of  the  transaction, 

the  choir  of  the  Cathedral  of  Chester.  The  reality  of  these  cures— the  efficacy 
of  this  touch — was  attested  by  much  stronger  evidence  than  that  adduced  by 
Mr.  Hume  for  the  miracles  of  Vespasian  ;  than  that  referred  to  by  the  Cardi 
nal  de  Retz ;  and  than  those  performed  at  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe  Paris. 
"Theologians  of  eminent  learning,  ability,  and  virtue  gave  the  sanction  of 
their  authority  to  this  mummery,  and  medical  men  of  high  note  believed,  or 
affected  to  believe,  in  the  balsamic  virtues  of  the  royal  hand.  We  must  sup 
pose  that  every  surgeon  who  attended  Charles  the  Second  was  a  man  of  high 
repute  for  skill ;  and  more  than  one  of  the  surgeons  who  attended  Charles 
the  Second  has  left  us  a  solemn  profession  of  faith  in  the  king's  miraculous 
power."  William  of  Orange  committed  an  almost  unpardonable  offense  by 
"sneering"  at  the  practice,  and  refusing  to  lend  his  sanction  to  it.  "It  is  a  silly 
superstition,"  said  he,  when,  at  the  close  of  Lent,  his  palace  was  besieged  by  a 
crowd  of  the  sick.  "  Give  the  poor  creatures  some  money,  and  send  them 
away."— Macaulay,  History  of  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  432-435. 


APPENDIX.  445 

and  who  gave  circulation  to  the  report  on  the  strength  of  what  they 
saw,  gave  up  their  former  cherished  hopes,  changed  their  whole  course 
of  life,  abandoned  all  their  plans,  and  all  the  opinions  in  which  they 
had  been  trained,  and  sacrificed  their  ease  and  their  reputation ;  if  they 
went  forth  on  the  ground  of  this  to  meet  every  form  of  trial,  and  bore 
patiently  the  most  cruel  tortures,  and  met  death  itself  rather  than 
change  their  testimony  on  the  subject ,  and  if  the  belief  of  such  mira 
cles  actually  changed  the  religions,  the  customs,  and  laws  of  the  world, 
producing  changes  that  could  be  traced  through  eighteen  hundred 
years,  making  the  world  different  from  what  it  was,  and  modifying  its 
customs  and  laws,  then,  and  only  then,  would  it  be  proper  to  allege 
that  the  miracles  of  Vespasian  were  an  offset  against  the  miracles  of 
the  New  Testament.* 

The  second  case  referred  to  by  Mr.  Hume  is  the  restoration  of  the 
limb  of  an  attendant  in  a  Spanish  church,  as  told  by  Cardinal  de  Retz. 

It  is  evident  from  the  narrative,  as  given  by  Mr.  Hume,  that  the 
cardinal  who  relates  this  story  did  not  himself  believe  it ;  and  it  is 
manifestly  adduced  by  him  because  the  cardinal  did  not  believe  it,  and 
with  a  design  to  leave  the  impression  that  all  miracles  should  be  treat 
ed  with  the  same  degree  of  incredulity.  Undoubtedly  there  have  been 
thousands  of  pretended  miracles  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  as 
well  as  elsewhere,  that  should  be  treated  in  this  manner,  and  that  are 
precisely  parallel  with  this.  The  reasoning,  however,  so  far  as  there 
is  any  reasoning  in  the  case,  would  not  be  far  from  that  where,  if  a 
man  saw  one  counterfeit  note,  he  should  infer  that  all  notes  were 
counterfeit,  or  where,  if  he  met  with  one  case  of  imposture  in  a  com 
munity,  he  should  infer  that  all  the  transactions  in  society  were  im 
posture  and  delusion.  In  fact,  nothing  can  be  more  easy  than  to  ac 
count  for  all  that  is  here  said  by  Cardinal  de  Retz.  The  substitution 
of  an  artificial  leg  would  account  for  all  that  he  says.  What  he  says 
is,  that  the  man,  "  who  had  served  seven  years  as  a  door-keeper,  and 
was  well  known  to  every  body  in  town,  had  been  seen  for  so  long  a 
time  wanting  a  leg, "but  that  "he  saw  him  with  two  legs.."  He  in 
deed  affirms  that  he  had  "recovered  that  limb  by  the  rubbing  of  holy 
oil  upon  the  stump,"  and  that  "this  was  vouched  by  all  the  canons  of 
the  church;"  but  the  only  fact  to  which  he  bears  testimony  is,  that 
,  "he  saw  him  with  two  legs."  There  was,  manifestly,  no  examina 
tion  ;  there  was  no  comparison  of  the  two :  there  is  even  no  statement 
that  he  was  seen  walking ;  and  every  thing  that  the  cardinal  saw,  and 
which  is,  therefore,  the  subject  of  his  testimony,  could  be  explained  on 
the  supposition  that  an  artificial  leg  had  been  made  to  supply  the  place 
of  the  one  that  had  been  lost — a  thing  certainly  not  unusual,  and  not 
*  Compare  Paley's  Evidences  of  Christianity,  Works,  vol.  i.,  p.  198-201. 


446  APPENDIX. 

involving  a  miracle.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  also,  as  Dr.  Paley  has 
remarked,  that  "the  ecclesiastics  of  the  place  would,  it  is  probable, 
favor  the  story,  inasmuch  as  it  advanced  the  honor  of  their  image  and 
the  church.  And  if  they  patronized  it,  no  other  person  at  Saragossa, 
in  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  would  care  to  dispute  it.  The  story 
likewise  coincided  not  less  with  the  wishes  and  preconceptions  of  the 
people  than  with  the  interests  of  their  ecclesiastical  rulers,  so  that 
there  was  prejudice  backed  by  authority,  and  both  operating  on  ex 
treme  ignorance,  to  account  for  the  success  of  the  imposture."* 

The  only  thing,  in  fact,  remarkable  about  this  case  is,  that  a  man  of 
Mr.  Hume's  acuteness  in  argument  should  ever  have  referred  to  such 
a  case  as  an  offset  against  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament — the 
healing  of  the  blind,  the  deaf,  and  the  lame  by  the  Savior ;  the  stilling 
of  the  tempest  on  the  Sea  of  Tiberias  by  his  command ;  and  the  rais 
ing  of  Lazarus  from  the  grave,  and  that  he  should  have  been  willing 
to  peril  the  cause  of  infidelity  by  an  argument  so  manifestly  weak. 

The  third  case  referred  to  by  Mr.  Hume  is  derived  from  the  cures 
said  to  have  been  performed  at  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe  Paris. 

The  argument  in  the  case,  as  stated  by  Mr.  Hume,  rests  on  these 
points  :  (a)  The  number  of  the  miracles  :  ' '  There  surely  never  was 
a  greater  number  ascribed  to  one  person  than  those  which  were  lately 
said  to  have  been  wrought  in  France  upon  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe 
Paris.''  (b)  The  fact  that  these  were  "  every  where  talked  of  as  usual 
effects  of  that  holy  sepulchre."  (c)  The  fact  that  these  miracles  were 
immediately  proved  to  be  true :  "What  is  more  extraordinary,  many 
of  the  miracles  were  immediately  proved  upon  the  spot,  before  judges 
of  unquestioned  integrity,  attested  by  witnesses  of  credit  and  distinc 
tion,  in  a  learned  age,  and  on  the  most  eminent  theatre  that  is  now  in 
the  world."  (d)  The  fact  that  the  Jesuits,  enemies  of  the  Jansenists, 
in  whose  favor  the  miracles  were  said  to  have  been  wrought,  ' '  though 
a  learned  body,  supported  by  the  civil  magistrate,  and  determined  en 
emies  to  those  opinions,  were  never  able  distinctly  to  refute  or  detect 
them. " 

In  regard  to  this  case,  and  the  arguments  in  favor  of  these  mira 
cles,  considered  with  reference  to  a  comparison  with  those  of  the  New 
Testament,  the  following  remarks  may  be  made  . 

(1.)  The  number  of  the  miracles  said  to  have  been  wrought  was,  in 
fact,  exceeding  small.  Mr.  Hume  says  there  "never  was  a  greater 
number  ascribed  to  one  person."  That,  however,  is  not  true,  for  a 
much  larger  number  has  been  "  ascribed''  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  The 
number  of  cures  at  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe  Paris,  as  actually  recorded  by 
historians,  was  nine  only.  These  were  all  that  the  zealous  and  inde- 
*  Works,  vol.  i.,  p.  202. 


APPENDIX.  447 

fatigable  Montgoron  claimed  to  produce  vouchers  for,  or  claimed  to 
have  been  proved  to  have  been  wrought  at  the  tomb.*  These  were  all 
that  were  pretended  to  be  cured  out  of  the  crowds  of  the  infirm  and 
the  sick  who  came  or  were  brought  to  the  tomb.  It  is  true,  indeed, 
that  another  author  who  has  given  a  record  of  those  miracles,  referred 
to  by  Mr.  Hume  under  the  title  of  Recueil  des  Miracles  de  1'Abbe 
Paris  (Essays,  vol.  ii.,  p.  441),  has  mentioned  a  much  larger  number, 
but  they  were  miracles  wrought,  as  he  says,  in  the  private  chambers 
of  the  sick,  by  virtue  of  the  relics  of  the  Abbe,  or  by  images  of  the 
saint,  or  by  earth  brought  from  under  his  monument.t  As  Mr.  Hume 
confines  the  argument  to  miracles  wrought  at  the  "  tomb,"  it  is  proper 
to  notice  those  only. 

What  is  particularly  remarkable,  however,  in  regard  to  these  alleged 
miracles  is  the  small  number  out  of  the  whole  that  are  claimed  to  have 
been  cured.  Many  thousands  of  such  persons  —  the  afflicted  in  all 
forms  —  visited  the  tomb.  Nine  only  are  vouched  for  as  actually 
cured.  Now  there  has  been  no  form  of  pretended  miracles,  or  of  de 
ception  and  imposture  in  medicine,  in  which  a  greater  proportion  have 
not  been  restored  to  health — cured — than  in  this  case.  Under  the  ap 
plication  of  mesmerism,  or  "  quack"  medicines  of  any  kind,  more  mar 
vels  than  these  have  been  accomplished — more  cures  effected.  Many 
more  cases  of  cure — probably  many  more  in  proportion  to  the  whole 
number  —  occurred  undoubtedly  in  the  "touch"  for  the  "king's  evil" 
during  the  time  when  faith  was  exercised  in  the  efficacy  of  that 
"  touch  ;"  that  is,  there  were  more  cases  of  cure  where,  under  the  influ 
ence  of  the  imagination,  persons  were  "  touched ;"  or  where  the  disease 
was  imaginary  and  was  thus  removed ;  or  where  a  restoration  to  health 
had  been  already  commenced  under  the  power  of  medicine,  or  the  re 
cuperating  power  of  nature ;  or  where,  from  any  cause,  a  recovery  to 
health  was  dated  from  such  a  touch.  It  is  impossible  to  suppose  that 
this  superstition  could  have  been  kept  up  from  age  to  age  if  such  had 
not  been  the  case.  It  is  not  difficult,  in  most  or  all  of  these  cases,  to 
account  for  these  facts  without  supposing  that  the  quack  medicine 
has  genuine  restoring  properties ;  that  the  nostrum  is  valuable ;  that 
mesmerism  is  founded  in  truth  ;  or  that  there  was  real  efficacy  in  the 
"touch"  for  the  "king's  evil."  Many  of  these  diseases  would  be 
healed  by  the  mere  course  of  nature ;  many  were  nervous  complaints, 
and  would  be  allayed  and  removed  by  a  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  the 
medicine ;  many  would  be  healed  under  the  influence  of  the  imagina- 

*  Mons.  Montgoron,  the  reporter  of  these  miracles,  was,  as  Mr.  Hume  says 
(Essays,  vol.  ii.,  p.  441),  a  "counsellor  or  judge  of  the  Parliament  of  Paris,  a 
man  of  figure  and  character,  who  was  also  a  martyr  to  the  cause." 

t  Dr.  Campbell,  Examination  of  Mr.  Hume's  Essay  on  Miracles. 


448  APPENDIX. 

tion ;  many  would  be  cases  which  would  not  bear  a  rigid  examina 
tion,  but  would  be  cases  where  the  healing  was  apparent,  and  where 
there  would  be  seen  to  be  imposture  at  the  foundation. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  remark  how  unlike  all  this  is  to  the  miracles  of 
the  Savior.  Many  thousands  of  cases  came  before  him.  ALL — not 
the  proportion  of  "nine"  to  thousands,  but  all,  according  to  the  ac 
count  in  the  New  Testament,  were  healed  (Matt.,  v.,  24;  xii.,  15; 
xiv.,  14;  xvii.,  15;  Luke,  xxii.,  51.  Comp.  Acts,  iv.,  14;  v.,  16; 
xxviii.,  8). 

(2.)  Many  of  the  cases  at  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe  Paris  were  such  as 
could  be  cured  by  natural  causes.  One  of  the  cures  referred  to  by 
Montgoron  was  that  of  Don  Alphonzo  de  Palacios,  who  had  lost  one 
eye,  and  who  was  afflicted  with  an  inflammation  in  the  other.  The 
inflamed  eye  was  cured,  but  the  lost  eye  was  not  restored  to  sight. 
Had  the  lost  eye  been  restored  to  sight,  there  could  have  been  no 
doubt  that  a  miracle  was  wrought.  An  inflamed  eye  might  be  re 
stored  by  natural  causes.  In  another  case — that  of  Peter  Gantior — one 
of  his  eyes  had  been  pricked  with  an  awl.  It  is  certainly  possible  that, 
while  there  was  temporary  blindness,  nature  would  have  restored  the 
sight.  Many  of  the  cases  at  the  tomb  were  cases  of  paralytic  and  drop 
sical  disorders — cases  where  nature,  in  numerous  instances,  produces 
temporary  if  not  permanent  relief.  It  does  not  appear  that  any  one 
of  the  "  nine"  was  a  case  which  could  not  be  accounted  for  in  that 
way. 

(3.)  It  was  a  fact  that  many  of  the  devotees  at  the  tomb,  and  some 
of  those  who  were  asserted  to  have  been  cured,  had  been  using  medi 
cines  before,  and  continued  to  use  them  even  when  there.  "  That  the 
Spanish  youth  had  been  using  all  the  while  a  medicine  prescribed  by 
an  eminent  oculist  was  proved  by  the  depositions  of  witnesses  ;  that 
Gantior  had  begun  to  receive  his  sight  before  he  had  recourse  to  the 
sepulchre  was  attested  not  only  by  his  uncle,  but  even  by  himself, 
when,  as  the  Archbishop  of  Sens  informs  us,  he  signed  a  recantation 
of  what  he  had  formerly  advanced."* 

(4.)  None  of  the  miracles  at  the  tomb  were  instantaneous.  All 
that  Christ  and  his  apostles  wrought  were.  The  blind  saw  at  once ; 
the  lame  man  leaped  as  an  hart  when  told  to  walk  ;  the  paralytic  took 
his  bed  and  walked  immediately ;  the  young  man  of  Nain  sat  up  in 
stantaneously  in  the  bier ;  Lazarus  came  forth,  at  the  very  moment  of 
the  command  of  the  Savior,  from  the  grave.  Not  so  at  the  tomb  of 
the  Abbe  Paris.  "  All  the  worshipers  at  the  tomb  persisted  for  days, 
several  of  them  for  weeks,  and  some  for  months  successively,  daily  im 
ploring  the  intercession  of  the  Abbe,  before  they  obtained  relief  from 
*  Dr.  Campbell,  Hume's  Essays,  vol.  ii.,  p.  588.  t  Id.  Ibid. 


APPENDIX.  449 

their  complaints ;  and  the  relief  which  they  received  is,  in  most  cases, 
acknowledged  to  have  been  gradual,  "t 

(5.)  In  view  of  these  facts,  and  of  the  strong  presumption  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  that  there  might  have  been  collusion  and  designed 
imposture  practiced  to  establish  and  maintain  the  credit  of  the  "  saint" 
and  of  the  tomb,  we  are  prepared  to  see  what  is  the  real  force  of  the 
remark  which  Mr.  Hume  so  exultingly  makes  in  the  text  of  his  Essay, 
and  which  he  labors  to  confirm  in  a  note  appended  to  it,  that  the  tes 
timony  in  this  case  was  above  suspicion,  and  that  it  could  not  be  re 
futed.  Thus  he  says,  in  the  Essay,  "What  is  more  extraordinary, 
many  of  the  miracles  were  immediately  proved  upon,  the  spot,  before 
judges  of  unquestioned  integrity,  attested  by  witnesses  of  credit  and 
distinction,  in  a  learned  age,  and  on  the  most  eminent  theatre  that  is 
now  in  the  world.  Nor  is  this  all ;  a  relation  of  them  was  published 
and  dispersed  every  where ;  nor  were  the  Jesuits,  though  a  learned 
body,  supported  by  the  civil  magistrate,  and  determined  enemies  to 
those  opinions  in  whose  favor  the  miracles  were  said  to  have  been 
wrought,  ever  able  distinctly  to  refute  or  detect  them."* 

Thus  he  says,  also,  in  a  note:  "Many  of  the  miracles"  [the  word 
11  many"  here  means  nine]  "of  the  Abbe  Paris  were  proved  immedi 
ately  by  witnesses  before  the  officiating  or  bishop's  court  at  Paris,  un 
der  the  eye  of  Cardinal  Noailles,  whose  character  for  integrity  and  ca 
pacity  was  never  contested  even  by  his  enemies."  "No  less  a  man 
than  the  Due  de  Chatillon,  a  duke  and  peer  of  France,  of  the  highest 
rank  and  family,  gives  evidence  of  a  miraculous  cure,  performed  on  a 
servant  of  his,  who  had  lived  several  years  in  his  house  with  a  visible 
and  palpable  infirmity."  "I  shall  conclude,"  says  he,  "  with  observ 
ing  that  no  clergy  are  more  celebrated  for  strictness  of  life  and  man 
ners  than  the  secular  clergy  of  France,  particularly  the  rectors  or  cures 
of  Paris,  who  bear  testimony  to  these  impostures."! 

The  sum  of  the  whole  matter  in  regard  to  these  alleged  miracles  is 
this  :  We  may  surely  and  safely  admit  all  the  facts  which  are  alleged 
in  the  case.  The  facts  are  these :  (a)  That  great  numbers  of  persons, 
afflicted  with  various  kinds  of  diseases,  visited  the  tomb  with  the  hope 
of  a  cure.  (6)  That  we  may  suppose  that  a  part  or  all  the  cases  of 
those  who  are  alleged  to  have  been  healed  were  cases  of  real  disease, 
or  were  not  feigned,  (c)  That  there  was,  in  a  few  instances,  a  real 
and  permanent  restoration  to  health,  (d)  That  this  occurred~at  the 
tomb  of  the  Abbe  Paris,  or  after  visiting  that  tomb,  (e)  That  the 
cases  were  examined  before  judges  deemed  competent  to  decide  such 
matters.  (./")  That  the  witnesses  were  credible  witnesses,  and  were, 
in  many  instances,  above  suspicion.  (-7)  That  it  was  impossible  for 
e,  vol.  ii.,  p.  11T.  t  Id.  Ibid.,  p.  242,  244. 


450  APPENDIX. 

the  Jesuits  to  disprove  these  facts,  and  that  they  were  constrained  to 
admit  that  these  cures  were  actually  wrought. 

The  material  point,  however,  is  not  reached  and  affected  by  these 
admitted  facts — that  all  this  was  done  by  the  saint ;  by  his  tomb  ;  by 
his  virtues ;  or  by  God  in  attestation  of  his  virtues,  or  in  defense  of 
the  party  to  which  he  belonged.  If  the  remarks  above  made  furnish 
a  plausible,  or  POSSIBLE  explanation  of  the  facts  in  the  case — of  all 
that  occurred — then  the  case  does  not  amount  to  a  miracle,  and,  there 
fore,  whatever  else  may  follow  from  it,  it  does  not  follow  that  Christ 
did  not  raise  Lazarus  from  the  dead,  or  that  he  himself  did  not  rise. 

And  these  are  all.  These  are  the  strongest  cases  which  have  been 
referred  to  as  parallel  to  those  in  the  New  Testament,  and  as  having 
strength  sufficient  to  neutralize  the  argument  for  the  divine  origin  of 
Christianity  as  derived  from  miracles.  These  are  selected  from  the 
wide  range  of  supposed  supernatural  agencies  in  the  heathen  and  in 
the  Christian  world :  and  it  may  be  presumed  that  the  best  selection 
has  been  made.  The  inquiry  as  to  the  cases  which  should  be  selected 
embraced  the  entire  period  from  the  remotest  ages  to  the  time  of  Mr. 
Hume  himself,  and  was  made  by  one  who  was  an  accomplished  histo 
rian,  and  who  was,  perhaps,  as  familiar  with  the  facts  of  history  as 
any  man  then  living.  Nothing  new  has  been  added  to  the  argument 
since  his  time ;  no  more  decided  cases  of  miraculous  agency  have  been 
referred  to ;  none  have  been  furnished  in  heathen  lands,  or  in  the 
Papal  church,  that  would  contribute  more  strength  to  the  cause  of  in 
fidelity.  It  may  be  assumed  now  that  no  stronger  cases  will  occur  in 
future  times.  If,  therefore,  these  do  not  neutralize  the  force  of  the 
testimony  in  favor  of  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament,  then  that 
testimony  remains  in  its  full  force. 

The  conclusion  which  we  have  reached  is  this :  If  the  miracles  of 
the  Bible  can  not  be  resolved  into  facts  to  be  explained  by  natural 
laws ;  if  they  can  not  be  philosophically  placed  on  the  same  foundation 
as  witchcraft,  divination,  sorcery,  mesmerism,  and  spirit-rapping,  and 
explained  in  the  same  manner ;  if  they  can  not  be  disposed  of  as  the 
alleged  miracles  in  the  Christian  Church  after  the  time  of  the  apostles 
may  be ;  and  if  they  are  not  on  a  level  with  the  miracles  referred  to 
by  skeptics  as  parallel  cases,  and  are  not  to  be  explained  in  the  same 
manner,  then  the  argument  for  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  which  has 
been  so  satisfactory  to  a  large  part  of  the  world  for  eighteen  hundred 
years  is  as  strong  as  it  can  be  supposed  to  have  been  in  the  first  cen 
tury,  and  the  evidence  is  to  be  regarded  as  placed  on  the  same  founda 
tion  as  that  for  well-attested  historical  facts  that  have  gone  into  the 
history  of  the  world. 

It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  real  facts  of  history  have  gone  into 


APPENDIX.  451 

the  history  of  the  world,  and  have  made  the  world  what  it  now  is. 
Those  facts,  and  the  proper  influence  of  those  facts,  can  not  now  be  de 
tached  from  history,  or  from  the  present  condition  of  the  world.  The 
facts  in  regard  to  the  miracles  of  Christianity,  also,  have  gone  into  the 
history  of  the  world,  and  can  not  be  detached  from  it.  The  civilized 
world  is  what  it  is  now,  and  the  whole  world  will  be  what  it  will  be  in 
coming  ages,  because  Christ  was  believed  to  have  wrought  miracles,  and 
to  have  been  raised  from  the  dead.  Those  facts  were  attested  by  men 
who  saw  them ;  who  recorded  them ;  who  had  no  special  interest  to 
promote  by  them ;  who  abandoned  all  the  opinions  in  which  they  had 
been  trained  because  they  believed  in  them ;  who  sacrificed  all  their 
prejudices  on  the  ground  of  that  belief;  who  met  reproach  and  calum 
ny,  persecution,  peril,  and  death  in  its  most  fearful  forms,  in  attesta 
tion  of  the  truth  of  those  miracles  ;  who  never  wavered  in  their  state 
ments  ,  who  could  never  be  induced  by  terrors  or  by  bribes  to  give 
utterance  to  a  doubt  about  the  truth  of  those  events ;  and  or  whom  not 
one — no,  not  one — ever  breathed  a  suspicion  that  he  had  been  himself 
deceived,  or  that  those  with  whom  he  was  associated  had  conspired  to 
deceive  the  world.  In  a  most  intelligent  age ;  in  the  very  centre  of 
learning ;  among  the  most  cultivated  people,  and  in  cities  where  the 
talent  and  power  of  the  world  were  concentrated,  they  bore  their  tes 
timony,  and  their  testimony  was  believed.  The  religion  was  propa 
gated  on  the  ground  of  these  miracles.  The  religions  of  the  world 
•\vere  changed,  and  a  new  order  of  things,  sending  its  influence  onward 
for  eighteen  hundred  years,  was  instituted  on  that  ground.  Altars 
were  forsaken;  temples  were  abandonded;  priests  were  disrobed; 
laws  were  changed  ;  customs  of  long  standing  passed  away  on  that 
ground.  A  new  spirit  was  breathed  into  the  literature  of  the  world 
on  that  ground ;  and  philosophy  took  a  new  form  on  that  ground. 
Men  were  changed  from  vice  to  virtue  on  that  ground ;  and  thousands 
of  martyrs  from  all  ranks  of  people — the  rich,  the  honored,  the  gay, 
the  refined — on  that  ground  sealed  their  faith  with  their  blood.  The 
alleged  miracles  of  Vespasian  and  those  at  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe 
Paris  have  done  nothing — literally  nothing — permanently  to  affect  the 
faith,  the  religion,  the  hopes,  the  intelligence,  or  the  morals  of  man 
kind  ;  the  miracles  of  Christ  have  changed  the  world.  Myriads  of 
the  human  race,  among  the  most  intelligent  and  pure,  have  believed 
that  those  miracles  demonstrated  that  he  came  from  God ;  there  is 
nothing  yet  to  lead  us  to  doubt  that  this  will  be  still  more  prevailingly 
the  faith  of  the  world  in  the  ages  to  come,  and  that  perpetuated  faith 
in  those  miracles  will  determine  the  condition  of  the..n»tions  ef  the 
earth  in  the  winding  up  of  human  affairs.  A 

THE    END.        ffvtjb 

;/     • 

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